About 8-10 years ago, another Turkish bank, Garanti, offered sms based money sending when the sms craze was at its height.

It would send you a one-time random code that you could enter at any ATM, along with your and the sender's phone numbers and the known amount (which would not be in the SMS you got as the receiver).

The sender would have to sms a service number like "3434" with the receiver phone number, the amount, and a special pre-determined pin. Whenever the amount was sent and accepted, the sender got confirmation SMSes, so they could notice and contest this in the off chance of fraud. Also, there was a daily limit to the amount that could be sent this way, only increasable online or over the phone after identity checks.

All in all, not bad. Could be abused under very lucky circumstances (eg. phone got stolen and was storing sent SMSes, which was not the default during those days when phone memory was limited. And then the thief would have to get another stolen phone to retrieve the money so as to not give out their identity, and would have to do so under a security camera'd ATM), but not a super high chance and no super high risk.

This saved me tons of times when I would have been stranded as a teenager but managed to call my parents. Or, later on, when I had my phone but had misplaced my card.

Turkey is very interesting in such things. I live in Germany and my parents live in Turkey. No bank in Germany would even think about such things but in I can't shake off the feeling that they just do it. Another cool thing my cousins told me is that they can send each other cash from mobile phone to mobile phone. Say I don't have money on my prepaid card and my friends have enough and don't use it, they just can send couple of bucks to my phone.

I mean I don't use a prepaid card but I think it is awesome! As a student this is a great option!

I hope we see more of this kind of rule breaking things from around the world. Sometimes it feels like the people in the world are getting more and more afraid of change which breaks "common rules". Money transferring is one such crazy issue.

Similar service is offered by a Polish bank Alior Sync: http://static.sync.pl/attachment/jak_zlecic_przelew_na_fb.pd...

When it comes to banking, I prefer to stay away from the cutting edge.

South Africa's FNB also lets you send money to others and buy cellular airtime, SMS and data bundles via Facebook, so this bank's claim to being the first seems doubtful.

As an aside, FNB was recently given the Most Innovative Bank of 2012 award at the BAI-Finacle Global Banking Innovation Awards in DC. It's pay-off for a big investment they've made over the past few years to adopt new technology and mediums for banking. [0]

A friend and former colleague works there, so I'm pleased to see them doing well.

[0]https://www.fnb.co.za/news/archive/2012/20121010FNBsDNA.html

This is the same in New Zealand. ASBBank lets you send money to your Facebook friends from their mobile app.

I sense a new iteration of the "I'm stranded in London after being mugged" scam.

I have a friend with a terrible hash habit. He will be so thrilled...