Industry Research Firm Identifies Mobile Messaging as High-Impact Technology Initiative For Financial Services Organizations

- Study Shows that 80% of Financial Services Organizations are Looking to Utilize Global SMS as a Secure and Effective Channel for Communicating Sensitive Information with Customer and Employees

SEATTLE, July 22, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- OpenMarket, a leader in enterprise mobile engagement, today unveiled results of a commissioned study from the International Data Corporation (IDC). The IDC InfoBrief, sponsored by OpenMarket, titled "Exploring the Impact of Mobile Messaging in the Financial Services Industry," reveals results from IT, mobile and business technology decision makers representing Global 2000 financial services organizations. The greatest benefits of mobile messaging for this market segment are its abilities to enhance the customer experience and improve employee relations. Eighty-eight percent of these businesses believe SMS has a considerable or major impact on customer service and 73% consider it to be very effective for employee-focused emergency alerts.

In this highly regulated industry where breaches can occur, financial services organizations are on high alert and are seeking the safest channels for communication. Mobile messaging is secure and scalable, and with critical capabilities such as two-factor authentication for fraud detection, the technology is being rapidly adopted industry-wide. According to the research, the top customer-facing use cases for SMS include timely offers and notifications regarding high-risk, high-dollar transactions, as 30% of these businesses utilize secure SMS messaging to gain deeper customer insights and to meet industry compliance requirements, respectively. Internally, financial services organizations use mobile messaging as a key component for employee communication and contingency planning to improve internal security and facilitate secure employee notifications. Business leaders are also driving new investments in mobile messaging and are closely involved in solution, specification, selection, and deployment to ensure technologies are meeting the standards the industry.

"These findings revealed that the financial services industry has one of the greatest demands for mobile messaging capabilities and that these businesses are taking a long-term, purpose-led approach to their mobile messaging investment," said Marc DeCastro, Research Director, Consumer Banking, IDC Insights. "Financial services organizations must look at vendors with a track record of secure encryption, outstanding support and managed services, and the flexibility to provision a variety of use cases in order to meet the specific mobile messaging needs of their internal and external stakeholders."

The IDC study highlights other key ways financial services companies are using mobile messaging today.

• More than 50% of organizations use mobile messaging to differentiate or improve the customer experience
• 35% utilize the technology to attract and retain new customers
• More than 25% use it to improve the business' risk mitigation
• More than 20% of these businesses use it to ensure business continuity and to enhance multichannel delivery capacity
• Surprisingly only 15% use mobile messaging to improve their organization's security

"These findings show that financial services organizations are incorporating secure, effective mobile messaging into many aspects of their customer service and employee communications, as well as their internal business operations," said Jay Emmet, General Manager of OpenMarket. "A well-designed, company-wide mobile messaging strategy that meets the industry's high-compliance and regulated standards will allow businesses to enhance the customer experience, gain additional customer insights, improve employee relations, and drive operational efficiencies."

The research reflects findings around the financial services industry's customer preferences for engaging via text-enabled customer service phone numbers that OpenMarket announced earlier this year. This study found that the financial services industry has the greatest demand from their customer base for adding SMS capabilities to their existing customer service lines – equating to over 50% of all SMS-based requests from consumers across all major industries, such as retail and travel and hospitality. Where mobile app usage and SMS banking alerts are already widely available in financial services, the research revealed that 231,805 message inquiries were attempted to be sent to a subset of 800 North American financial services organizations alone.

To download the IDC research report, "Exploring the Impact of Mobile Messaging in the Financial Services Industry," visit http://www.openmarket.com/download/idc-financial-services/.

About OpenMarket

OpenMarket, a division of Amdocs, helps enterprises use mobile to transform their business. OpenMarket provides mobile engagement solutions for organizations to optimize their operations and enhance relationships with their customers and employees. Major enterprises choose OpenMarket for our domain expertise, service flexibility, demonstrated performance and reliability, global scale, and corporate maturity. We provide smart, interactive connectivity to more than 200 countries, enabling businesses to engage with nearly every mobile user around the world. Our clients trust us to power their mobile business. For more information, visit www.openmarket.com.

About Amdocs

For more than 30 years, Amdocs has ensured service providers' success and embraced their biggest challenges. To win in the connected world, service providers rely on Amdocs to simplify the customer experience, harness the data explosion, stay ahead with new services and improve operational efficiency. The global company uniquely combines a market-leading BSS, OSS and network control and optimization product portfolio with value-driven professional services and managed services operations. With revenue of $3.6 billion in fiscal 2014, Amdocs and its more than 22,000 employees serve customers in over 80 countries.

Amdocs: Embrace Challenge, Experience Success. For more information, visit Amdocs at www.amdocs.com.

Amdocs' Forward-Looking Statement

This press release includes information that constitutes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements about Amdocs' growth and business results in future quarters. Although we believe the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are based upon reasonable assumptions, we can give no assurance that our expectations will be obtained or that any deviations will not be material. Such statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to, the effects of general economic conditions, Amdocs' ability to grow in the business markets that it serves, Amdocs' ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses, adverse effects of market competition, rapid technological shifts that may render the Company's products and services obsolete, potential loss of a major customer, our ability to develop long-term relationships with our customers, and risks associated with operating businesses in the international market. Amdocs may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future; however, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These and other risks are discussed at greater length in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in our Annual Report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2014 filed on December 8, 2014 and our quarterly 6-K form furnished on February 9 and May 11, 2015.

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