Mobile commerce enabler Firethorn Holdings LLC, a Qualcomm company, has entered into an agreement with Fifth Third Processing Solutions to bring mobile banking services to its 2,880 financial institutions.

As part of the relationship, Fifth Third Processing Solutions will offer Firethorn's products to its processing financial institution clients, leveraging existing integration and connectivity to deploy Firethorn's mobile application. Fifth Third Processing Solutions plans to make the service available to its financial institutions before the end of the year.

"Fifth Third Processing Solutions does business with quite a few financial institutions and they have a clear mobile strategy," said Kelly Buday, director of marketing for Firethorn, Atlanta, GA. "They have a great list of customers, lots of folks we can reach out to, and we're going to serve them with a mobile offering."

"We're thrilled that we've been able to strike up a relationship with them," she said.

Through Firethorn's mobile banking solution, Fifth Third's customers will be able to check account balances, view transaction details and transfer funds.

Additionally, consumers will gain access to their account history and can make account balance inquiries via SMS.

Future capabilities will include more advanced mobile transactions and mobile commerce.

"Mobile POS transactions are part of our plan for the future," Ms. Buday said.
Because of Firethorn's relationships with carriers, clients such as Fifth Third Processing Solutions get preferred placement of their brands on handsets to drive adoption, as well as fully integrated end-to-end customer support.

Fifth Third Processing Solutions references Firethorn's market position, history in financial services and its vision for the future of payments as key differentiators setting Firethorn apart from its competitors.

Firethorn's collaboration with Fifth Third Processing Solutions will bring consumers relevant content to their mobile devices in a secure application.

Eventually, it also will allow Firethorn to bring traditional and non-traditional transactions to Fifth Third's 20 million cardholders and numerous other financial institutions through the Jeanie Network, as well as through direct connection to other debit and credit card networks.

Fifth Third has relationships with companies and institutions that bring value through financial services, merchant relationships and point-of-sale payment capabilities.

Firethorn's goal is to monetize the mobile channel for its strategic clients.

The company's strategy is to create opportunities to generate revenue, improve customer acquisition and retention and lower operational and servicing costs.

As the mobile commerce subsidiary of global wireless technology leader Qualcomm, Firethorn is able to leverage Qualcomm's wireless technology and its development expertise to design and deliver a mobile consumer experience.

The Firethorn mobile wallet is a single, secure, certified application embedded on select wireless handsets.

It lets financial institutions deliver branded services to consumers via the mobile device.

It also lets wireless operators deliver consumer-oriented, mass-market applications to subscribers and lets consumers access and add multiple financial relationships with one password.

Fifth Third Processing Solutions processes over 26.7 billion ATM and point-of-sale transactions per year for more than 2,880 financial institutions and more than 158,356 retail locations worldwide.

These include the Armed Forces Financial Network, First Niagara Financial Group, Sovereign Bank, The Kroger Co., AutoZone, Abercrombie & Fitch and The Finish Line.

Annually, Fifth Third processes $179.1 billion in credit card sales.

According to the March 2008 Nilson Report, Fifth Third Bank is the fourth largest bankcard acquirer.

"Fifth Third wants to be able to provide their customers with a mobile offering to give them the opportunity to manage their accounts via mobile," Ms. Buday said. "We provide that service to them and they can re-sell it to their customers.

"We'll get our app out there seamlessly, and they will market it to the end consumers," she said. "They know this is a growing industry, and the mobile offering will continue to evolve into true mobile commerce in the future."