TDAmeritrade App for iPhone, Android, BB and WM

Whats that old saying? When it rains, it pours.  Thats exactly how I felt when I noticed TDAmeritrade finally launched a mobile app for smartphone.  Make that four mobile apps, one for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, and Windows Mobile.  I'm sure TDAmeritrade customers have been waiting for far too long for this day to arrive and been a little jealous of E*TRADE customer's years of mobile application access.  Jealous no more!  Also, an iPad version is on its way as well.  I'm always excited when financial institutions launch mobile services, its one of those tasks that people rely on their desktop/laptop machines and can now be empowered to carry out on the go.

If you are an iPhone user, I'm saving you a step, just click here to launch the iTunes link directly.

Chase Mobile Website Brings Great Mobile Experience

On my commute home this afternoon, I was reminded by my iPhone calendar that a Chase Bank credit card payment is near due. I decided to see if I can make my commute more productive and pay for this on the bus. Right after I typed in Chase.com to my mobile Safari, it auto detects the browser user agent and kicked me over to Chase.mobi. When I attempted to login, Chase Bank's routine security feature required an extra step to verify I am truly the account owner since this is a device I had not used previously. Normally on a desktop PC, I'd ask Chase to send me an email on the verification/activation code; in this cause, I wanted an uninterrupted user session, so I elected it SMS to one of my phone numbers on profile. Moments later, iPhone's SMS system promoted the activation code ridden SMS which floats atop of my browser screen. I memorize the 8 digit sequence and plugged it into the browser continuing to pay.

Once logged in, the mobile site is very similar but very stripped down from the desktop experience. You can quickly browse through your accounts (bank, loans or credit cards) and select some basic actions. I went right to the credit card I intend to pay, and selected the "make a payment" link. In the next five steps, I was able to pick the payment amount, payment date and payment source to complete my task. From beginning to finish, it took all about 3 minutes.

Keep in mind that I have already had my profile and payment setup from prior desktop experience, hence the smoothness in this example. I didn't venture off to see if I can update a new payment source or change my phone number through the mobile browser. All in all, I find Chase's mobile attempt very user friendly and will add tremendous value to the overall mobile experience for its customers. For whatever reason, I always find mobile applications in the financial sector extra empowering!

Scottrade Mobile is Here to Serve

In a typical we have asked and vendors have listened fashion, Scottrade has released a mobile trading site which conveniently makes it compatible to all smartphones with a mobile browser. Normally, I'd given preference over a mobile application but in this case, Scottrade has opened itself up to all of its customers with a smartphone browser, it addressed the mobile OS hurdle with one simple solution.

Customers of Scottrade can enjoy the following benefits while accessing m.scottrade.com:
* Stock and ETF screeners
* Market research and news, including commentary, analyst views and a brief market calendar
* Stock quotes and research, including charts, options, fundamentals, insider transactions, earnings
* ETF quotes and research, including news and charts, options, portfolio, expenses and Lipper rankings
* SmartTextTM, which summarizes complex charts and information into plain English that is easy to understand

In general, I love mobile applications or sites from discount brokerage firms; it really empowers everyday Joes with the ability to handle their financial needs on the go. This is the kind of stuff that really enhances total mobile experience.

E*TRADE Mobile Pro for iPhone

You asked for it and they listened. E*TRADE Mobile Pro is now available as an iPhone App. This robust mobile trading application will allow you to pretty much do everything you need to trade stocks and mutual funds as if you were using a desktop.

Access your dashboard, portfolio, market overview, account info, quotes, trades, transfers and more...

I have always wanted to see more financial apps make its way to the mobile arena, this can give an individual so much more power on the go. There were times when I was traveling in a car service wished I could have made some trades. Kudos on E*TRADE for bringing us the Mobile Pro (first for BlackBerry) and now iPhone.

Side note: Where is TDAmeritrade in all of this? My research on their site only yields the following company MobiTraderOne, which offers a third party application (for free for existing customers on WM and iPhone). Another commenter from my previous post recommends "MarketSimplified Mobile," again a third party mobile trading platform, but free to existing customers (available on WM, iPhone, BB, Android and Symbian). I was hoping TDAmeritrade can develope their own mobile app!

Real Time Stock Quotes from Mobile CNBC

Need to check on the stock prices on the go? Want to get real time quotes (not 15-min delayed)? Now you can get NYSE and NASDAQ stock prices on CNBC Mobile Site (http://mobile.cnbc.com). While I've been waiting for the big discount firms to release applications allowing me to stream real time stock prices as well as carry out some basic transactions on the fly, this is the closest to real time quote for a mobile site as I can find. Prior to this, I had to use iPhone Safari to log in to a brokerage account in full version. Glad to see folks at CNBC stepping up.

Mobile Marketing Showcase: Bank of America iPhone App

There is no doubt about the way iPhone and APPLE's app store is going to change the way mobile commerce is going to be in the near future. I am always interested in seeing the big players make their moves in this new territory. Starting with this thread, I will create a new series called 'mobile marketing showcase'.

Bank of America is not holding back any, I saw a paid search ad (Content Targeting, actually) in my GMAIL inbox and it took me to this landing page.

It is nice to see the aggressive move made by BoA to introduce their commitment in mobile banking. I am not a BoA customer, but something like this can easily be viewed as a value add from a financial institution.

E*TRADE Mobile Pro for Traders w/ BlackBerry(s)

[Update 5/5/09 - E*TRADE Mobile Pro for iPhone now available.]

The financial industry, aside from taking a beating on the wall street lately, has been cautiously slow in introducing mobile access and applications. And as they should be cautious; considering how easily people can lose their mobile phones and end up causing unimaginable catastrophe to ther finances. However, having mobile access to financial services is somewhat inevitable considering folks in Japan have been using their mobile devices as a form of payment for years.

While mobile banking is starting to take off in the U.S. from the likes of Chase, Bank of America and Citibank, the stocks and brokerage firms have not actively participated in this arena until E*TRADE's new Mobile Pro, exclusively available as a BlackBerry application.

I took my 8830 to etrade.com/mobile and it quickly prompted me to provide/confirm my email address and asked if I was a customer. The next screen provided a download link which took about 30 seconds to install. After that process, I found the E*TRADE Mobile Pro icon within applications; upon launching it for the first time, it required me to complete the installation by resetting the device. From an installation standpoint, this is one of the most complicated installation process for a mobile application.

The resetting took a while and not sure why this is taking so long. At first, I thought it had crashed my BlackBerry. Later on this afternoon, I decided to keep letting the phone reset, and after about 10 minutes or so, my BlackBerry finally finished resetting itself and things went on normally. So be patient.

Once everything is up and running, the application proves to be very cool. I was able to login to check on my account(s) balance, real time quotes, news and pretty much everything E*TRADE platform has to offer via a dynamic mobile experience. The navigation UI is simple and intuitive with the trackball. In settings, you can set the time interval before it times out (default is 5 minutes, which is very nice for your protection. Overall, I am very pleased with E*TRADE Mobile Pro and hope to see this application rolled out to other mobile platforms (ie. Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android, etc.). I am hoping the rest of the investment industry will soon bring their services to mobile platforms so everyone can check on their investments on the go. There have been times when I am on a road trip and knowing the market will react to some news, and would have loved to be able to execute some trades over my mobile device, thanks to E*TRADE, this is now possible!