BC Business
Mobile banking innovator TRG Mobilearth Inc. is changing the way people do their banking. The privately owned, Vancouver-based company has developed software that allows users to bank by smartphone, tablet and personal computer. Mobilearth’s breakthrough innovation, however, is MobiBranch, a new tablet app that brings the bank to its clients, wherever they may be.
Creating a new account or applying for a loan or mortgage used to require a visit to the branch, but with MobiBranch, bank employees can perform secure banking transactions and process documents via tablet, whether the client is at home, on the job site, in the airport or at work. For Innovators panellist Dean Prelazzi, this development is disruptive in a sector that has been slow to embrace new technology. “Mobilearth’s technology for mobilizing branch functions into the hands of mobile employees has the potential to turn the entire retail banking business model on its ear. Over time, it could completely eliminate the need for bricks-and-mortar bank branches.”
With MobiBranch, account applications are paperless, signatures are digital, processes are streamlined and wait times are reduced. If a car dealership is negotiating financing for a client, for example, a bank employee armed with a MobiBranch-enabled mobile device can come to the dealership to oversee the process immediately.
B.C.’s Mount Lehman Credit Union and First West Credit Union have become Mobilearth’s first two MobiBranch clients. “We’re changing the way people interact with their financial institutions, in terms of offering banking mobility, digitizing the process and becoming more environmentally friendly through paperless banking,” says CEO Tia Lee.