This month CIBC  became the first Canadian Bank to release a mobile iPhone app  that enables transactions. Although Scotiabank  released its iPhone and iPod Touch application in December of last year it only allowed customers to find Scotia ABM and bank locations. Useful, but not as impactful as enabling mobile banking.

As highlighted in the Globe and Mail  Feb. 8, Mobile banking has been slow to take off in Canada. One cause of this may be high data costs in Canada as compared to other parts of the world while other factors I would attribute to the slow adoption are concerns about mobile security and although both the Blackberry and iPhone have web browser capability, online banking sites are not typically optimized for mobile devices.

Canadians are early adopters when it comes to new technology and IDC Canada notes that 78% of Canadians are using online banking while Mercatus LLC mentioned 9% of consumers already have a mobile banking account and nearly 20% are planning to start one next year.

Congratulations to CIBC for taking the first big step.