The rising popularity of mobile phone applications, the abundance of Smartphones and greater familiarity with text messaging are all factors driving the impressive growth in mobile banking services. Having experienced phenomenal growth outside the US, it seems as with many mobile technology offerings the US is now rapidly catching on. According to research from the Towers Group in 2007 there were 400,000 mobile banking users in the US, rising to around 3.1 million in 2008.

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As PR professionals working with financial services clients, it’s our job to keep an eye on what’s happening in the industry when it comes to social media engagement. Our clients want to know what their competitors are doing, and how they can improve on it. Our marketing and PR colleagues want to know how these strategies are being implemented, and how to work with legal and compliance to get it done. And we want to know what’s coming next, so we can forecast for our clients.

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Many financial communications professionals continue to try and wrap their arms around social media and the relevance to the financial services industry. Many retail banks have been able to use Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media venues as customer service tools to both aggregate and respond to customer complaints. Some have done this phenomenally well and been able to improve their customer service model because of this “real time” customer feedback– like Wells Fargo and USAA, for example (see below for examples). But what about the institutional side of banking – is there an opportunity for social media there? The short answer is yes.

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It’s a busy week in financial services – this week’s roundup highlights the news of the House’s passing of the historic health bill, Bernanke’s comments about the Fed’s oversight of banks, and more FDIC takeovers of community banks.

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This week’s highlights feature news from the private equity sector, findings from Morningstar’s 2010 Target-Date Industry Survey as well as a few items to be on the lookout for that may potentially impact the U.S. markets.

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Welcome to another round-up of the financial news we’re keeping an eye on this week. In addition to a few deals happening here and there – including AIG’s announcement that it will sell its ALICO business to MetLife, and Royal Dutch Shell and PetroChina offering to buy Arrow Energy of Australia – here’s what we’ll be watching (in addition to all of the best- and worst-dressed recaps from the Oscars):

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Over the past several months, we’ve received great feedback on our weekly news summaries, including a few suggestions on how these posts can be more helpful to our readers. We’ve taken this feedback to heart, and have decided to change our “weekly news roundup” feature to focus on major stories breaking in the financial services industry. Moving forward, Our Two Cents will be authored by members of BlissPR’s Financial Services Practice Group.

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The business of wealth management marketing is evolving – specifically, we are beginning to blog, tweet and link. Think your clients are not in the social media demographic? Think again. Bessemer Trust, the Wall Street Journal and more clients than you might imagine are already engaged in social media.

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Bummed it’s the end of the football season? Us too! But to liven up your Monday, we’ve compiled some nuggets of interest from the business world. It might not be as good as a party on Bourbon Street, but its close enough. This week we are taking a closer look at news in healthcare, the markets and banking. Enjoy!

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Last night at the Grammy’s all eyes were on big winners like Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Kings of Leon and Lady Gaga. This week in business news, B2B PR professionals at BlissPR have nominated Obama’s budget, Real Estate and Retail as the areas to watch.

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