Key Technologies

The ClairMail System is built around a unique set of key underlying technologies and capabilities which have set the pace of innovation in the mobile banking industry for more than five years and continue to set ClairMail apart from the rest of the market. Many of these technologies have become universally recognized as standard requirements for any mobile banking solution.

Multi-Channel Enrollment

For many mobile banking solutions, the only enrollment vehicle is through the use of existing credentials on the financial institution's online banking website. This automatically limits mobile banking to online banking customers and inherently reaches only a small subset of customers (10-12 percent at best).

ClairMail, on the other hand, opens its solution to a financial institution's entire customer base by uniquely allowing enrollment through virtually any channel. With ClairMail's multi-channel enrollment, financial institution customers can sign up for mobile banking via online, contact centers, branches, ATMs and directly on mobile phones, allowing financial institutions to achieve 100 percent coverage.

Preferences & Personalization

ClairMail enables customers to set preferences to best fit their mobile banking experience with their personal habits and individual needs. For instance, customers can choose language and select alert or account preferences. This ability to personalize builds “stickiness” and drives loyalty, leading to higher retention.

Messaging & Multi-Level Alerting

ClairMail was the first vendor to recognize that messaging is vital to mobile banking. As such, messaging has been a key part of the ClairMail System from the very first release. SMS commands provide the quickest and easiest way for customers to access their accounts while reaching the widest range of mobile handsets.

Subsequent releases of the ClairMail System have extended the company's lead in this area with technologies to manage scalability, deal with disparate aggregator capabilities and add state so that messages can be used as a channel for ClairMail's proactive, conversation-based alerts.

ClairMail introduced the concept of text alerts to the mobile banking industry in 2005. Initially limited to simple, one-way informational alerts, these proved to be a step-change for mobile banking as they provided a level of proactive customer support which was not available through any other channel.

Today, proactive, highly granular and real-time alerts continue to differentiate the ClairMail System. ClairMail offers multi-level alerting capabilities, with the following alert types:

• Informational Alerts: Customer receives account management information in real-time (e.g. low balance, statement ready, deposit notification, etc.).
• Actionable Alerts: Customer receives a notification which allows him to immediately respond with an action (e.g. bill pay, overdraft protection, transaction verification, second-factor authentication, etc.).
• Conversational Alerts: Customer interacts with the financial institution through a workflow or series of actionable alerts over time for deeper customer engagement (e.g. GreenPayments – repeated payment presentment and potential fee escalation).

Each alert type is best suited to different kinds of customer interactions. In order to best serve the wide range of customer interactions, ClairMail provides all three levels of alerting.

Many alerts are provided out-of-the-box; additionally, the ClairMail System provides the capability for new alerts to be added in order to cover an unlimited number of uses and workflows. ClairMail also provides comprehensive alerts management capabilities for both financial institutions and customers.

Self-Adapting Mobile Web

Although it is tempting to view mobile web banking as a simple extension of online banking, there are many issues with this path. In particular, the wide variety of carrier, operating system and browser combinations coupled with the disparate (and often limited) input and display characteristics of handsets make delivering a mobile web solution which gracefully adapts to each device an imposing problem.

ClairMail's mobile web solution is designed to solve this problem. Relying on the underlying ClairMail platform for its content, it provides an intelligent layer of page renderers which use real-time device detection and an extensive database of device capabilities to provide the best possible experience for each device (including specialized devices like the iPhone, where it renders an "application-quality" result).

Tight integration with the underlying platform means that it is possible to combine the best of mobile web and SMS into a unified experience (e.g. embedding secure URL links in SMS alerts which enable one-click access to further capabilities in the mobile browser).

Smart Client Application & Triple Play Convergence

In 2007, ClairMail pioneered the mobile banking triple play: messaging, mobile web and client applications on a unified platform.

Today, using the very latest smartphone technologies, ClairMail unifies all three modes into a single, intuitive Smart Client interface which provides a streamlined and integrated user experience; unlike other solutions, customers are not required to clumsily jump between modes.

Overdrafts, transaction approvals, bill payments and other alerts can be easily delivered and handled directly on the Smart Client interface. The underlying complex technology is completely transparent to the customer.

This not only optimizes the user experience, it also simplifies installations and minimizes update needs, thereby lowering total cost of ownership for financial institutions.

Cross-Product, Cross-Channel Orchestration

At the heart of the ClairMail solution is a flexible, enterprise-caliber mobile communications platform which is capable of wide, horizontal scalability across many different devices, protocols, carriers and applications.

While many other mobile solutions are hard-coded to the institution's core or online banking systems and are, therefore, inherently limited, the ClairMail mobile banking platform seamlessly integrates with any back-end system in order to obtain data and take appropriate action through its unique Mobile Connectivity Architecture (MCA).

ClairMail enables easy extensibility across the financial institution to touch every banking product, every channel and both retail and business customers of every asset class.

User Management & Reporting

The ClairMail solution comes with numerous out-of-the-box tools that enable FIs to easily and comprehensively manage the solution's implementation:

• CSR Console: Enables customer service representatives (CSRs) to provide support or directly enroll mobile banking users either at the branch or contact center. The CSR Console is essential for providing high-quality customer service and driving end-user adoption.
• Reporting Console: Provides a comprehensive set of system activity reports which deliver insight into system performance and end-user behavior. This information is vital for driving customer adoption and provides a valuable marketing resource for improved segmentation and targeting.
• Management Console: Monitors and manages all aspects of the ClairMail solution, including system health and activity. It also provides batch file management capabilities.