Mobile payment is now the hot trend in the corporate industry and bank services are quickly catching on.

Global lenders have already been in the mobile banking retail game for a while. For several years customers could easily check their personal balances and transfer funds to friends and retailers via their mobile devices. However, business-to-business adoption has been slow to take-off until fairly recently.

HSBC's corporate customers have already authorized US$50 billion worth in mobile payments via the bank's HSBCnet mobile platform since it was launched in 2011. Citi, which also introduced their own corporate mobile app in 2011, CitiDirect BE instantly saw high volumes of transactions. The bank in 2014 recorded over 1 million commercial transactions valued at more than US$120 billion in Asia alone, a 300% increase from their 2013 numbers. The transactions involved companies and small and medium enterprises.

"The world is on the brink of a new era in mobile payments which will revolutionize the way businesses operate," says Kee Joo Wong, Asia Pacific head of global payments and cash management.

Asian regional banks have also caught on with this trend as well. Malaysian headquartered Maybank has the Maybank2E app which like its international peers allows for automated reconciliation of transactions among other useful features. Singapore's DBS Bank had their IDEAL mobile app updated late last year to its 3.0 version to focus on ease of approving transactions "on the go".

While the convenience of checking company account balances, authorizing payments and receiving payment alerts mobility may sound attractive, companies also need to carefully analyze the risks of mobile banking to ensure that sensitive account information and transactions are not compromised.

Some challenges

In May 2013, the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) published a mobile banking report stating that there were risks involving malware and viruses when users downloaded banking apps online. The report warned that typing in the wrong transaction account may become more prevalent, "mobile phones, with their smaller screens and limited keypad, may make these errors more likely," the FCA reports states.

Nevertheless, despite security issues, mobile payments will play an increasingly bigger part of everyday life. Information from mobile phone data provider GSMA shows that currently there are 3.6 billion unique mobile subscriptions globally, up from 1 billion in 2003. There are 103 million active mobile money accounts. Moreover, GSMA also reports that by 2020, almost half of Asia will be actively using mobile banking tools.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the era of businesses using banker's drafts and physical cheques is slowly being phased out by institutions, overtaken by newer sleek mobile and tablet devices. In addition, banks will look to further expand their mobile capabilities to better serve corporate clients. With the trend, the mobile device becomes an efficient tool in running the cash flow of businesses as for buying a cup of coffee at a local café.