First Union Corp., the nation's sixth largest bank, and w-Technologies (formerly w-Trade Technologies), a global provider of wireless application software products and mobile business solutions, today announced an agreement that will enable First Union to offer interactive wireless services to its online customers.
During the first quarter of 2001, First Union will begin offering wireless services, which allow customers to access their account information, transfer funds and view financial news and stock quotes as well as receive market alerts on two-way pagers and wireless PDAs.
First Union's wireless offerings, which will be enabled by w-Technologies' software products, will be expanded to allow customers to execute trades, pay bills and access other financial services across a variety of handheld, wireless devices including mobile phones, pagers, PDAs, and handheld computers. The company also plans to introduce additional wireless products to serve its corporate and small business customers.
Earlier this year, First Union began offering alerts on account balances to online customers via pagers and other wireless devices. Thousands of customers have already signed up for the mobile service, reflecting analysts' predictions of tremendous growth in consumer usage of wireless services. According to industry analysts, there will be more than 200 million wireless financial service users by 2004.
"We are focused on adding new functions that anticipate our customers' needs to expand our relationship as a trusted financial services provider," said David Carroll, executive vice president and chief e-commerce officer at First Union. "Through our partnership with w-Technologies, First Union continues to build on its strong foundation of online services to provide convenient services to our customers -- when, where and how they choose."
"We're excited that First Union, one of the nation's largest financial institutions, has selected w-Technologies to enable its thousands of online customers to access their banking and brokerage accounts wirelessly," said Donna Oliva, CEO of w-Technologies. "As more and more consumers join the wireless revolution, businesses are realizing that offering their customers a wireless product is not just a competitive advantage - it's a necessity."
In addition to its wireless banking (w-Bank(TM)) and brokerage (w-Trade(TM)) products, w-Technologies currently offers 23 customizable application products in five areas, including finance, enterprise, communications, content and commerce. All of these applications can either stand alone or be combined and are based on the company's patent pending wireless technology platform. This multi-device, multi-network wireless architecture hooks into existing computing and execution systems and easily integrates with an organization's existing applications.
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