“The mobile phone is likely to be the basic bank account of the world by the next decade,” wrote Brett King in his new book, Bank 3.0.

It appears that that transition will cost financial institutions less — to the chagrin of tech vendors.

Sources tell Bank Innovation the price vendors of mobile banking platforms are charging financial institutions is dropping. While it is difficult to confirm exact pricing, in part because the pricing tech vendors give their clients is anything but standardized, it does appear that the price for mobile apps has dropped below the $1 per user per month threshold.

In 2009, the price per user per month was as high as $3. However, more recently, most products seem to have settled in at the $1 level. As recently as last June, Malauzai Software, Austin, Texas, purveyor of mobile apps for smaller financial institutions, told American Banker that it charged $1 per user per month. But the influx of tech vendors, as well as the embracing of mobile banking by the major IT players, apparently is undoing that. Geezeo, mFoundry (recently purchased by FIS), Monetise, SunGard, Malauzai, CSI, Fiserv, SAP and Intuit Financial Services are just some of the technology companies aggressively selling mobile products to financial services companies today.

It should be pointed out that this pricing compression for the vendors has happened before — with online banking products.

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