Exercise 25.2: M-commerce and the e-wallet: Innovation and mobile devices

Question 2.
Visit an airline Web site and search for information on WAP or SMS access to booking airline services. Do the same for WAP or SMS services in banking. How do both industries compare?

Visited the Qantas web site at http://www.qantas.com.au and searched for WAP. Got several results including the following FAQ:

Question :
Can I view qantas.com on my mobile, BlackBerry or iPhone?

Answer :
You can access key Qantas information from your mobile, PDA, BlackBerry or iPhone including:

• Real time Flight Status.
  
• Worldwide flight timetables.
  
• Your booking details.
  
• Contact numbers for Qantas offices worldwide.
  
• Qantas Club lounge locations

To access the service type qantas.com into your phone.

At the Qantas website I also searched for SMS. Got several results including the following information on the SMS Flight Update system that is provided by Qantas:

"SMS Flight Update allows us to notify you of changes to the scheduled departure time for most Qantas flights. "

SMS Flight Update is available to all Qantas customers who have an Australian or New Zealand registered SMS enabled mobile phone. It can be accessed in two ways:

• Provide your mobile phone number when you make a booking directly with Qantas (flight updates for that booking only).
  
  
• If you are a Frequent Flyer, register for the service via Your Profile. This will enable you to automatically receive flight updates for all your bookings with Qantas, no matter where the booking was made.

Visited the Bendigo Bank web site at http://www.bendigobank.com.au. Searched for WAP and got no results. Searched for SMS and got a link to Protecting Your Bank Accounts which says "You should immediately be suspicious of any person, phone call, SMS, email or correspondence asking you to disclose any of your banking details."

Because Bendigo Bank is a smaller bank, I decided to try another one to see if I could get any better results.

Visited the Commonwealth bank web site at http://www.commbank.com.au and searched for WAP. I got no results. Searched for SMS where I got some results including information about the NetCode SMS service.

NetCode SMS is a free service available to all NetBank customers. It replaces Personalised Identification Questions to provide added security when completing certain NetBank transactions. You will be prompted to ‘Get NetCode SMS’ when you:

• Access ‘my contact details’ on NetBank.
• Pay someone for the first time.
• Add a BPAY biller.
• Transfer money using international money transfers.
• Apply for a CommSec account via NetBank.

Every time you perform one of the above transactions, a new NetCode will be sent to your mobile phone via SMS. To complete your NetBank transaction, you must key in the 6-digit NetCode in the ‘Enter your NetCode’ field. Each NetCode number securely matches the Commonwealth Bank’s NetBank system.

The airline industry appears to be well ahead of the banking industry when it comes to mobile computing if my small sample is anything to go by.

References
FAQs (May 12, 2009). Retrieved July 21, 2009 from http://qantas.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/qantas.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=614
Protecting Your Bank Accounts (n.d.). Retrieved July 21, 2009 from http://www.bendigobank.com.au/public/e-banking/protecting.asp
Security (n.d.). Retrieved July 21, 2009 from http://www.commbank.com.au/help/faq/netbank/security.aspx#netbanksecurityalerts
SMS Flight Update (n.d.). Retrieved July 21, 2009 from http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/sms-flight-update/global/en