The notion of TV banking in the U.S. was recently floated on FinAi News, where industry players argued that a strong use case needed to be nailed down before deploying an offering. Bank of America, for example, is investigating how the customer would want to interact with the bank through the TV and what experience a bank would want to provide.

“Why would someone interact with their bank on their TV rather than their PC?” asked Marc Warshawsky, senior vice president of mobile channel planning and design at BofA, at a recent conference. “We must make it a compelling use case.”

Even if banking on a TV is more of a pipe dream in the U.S. at this point, the import of the device is becoming more relevant because of other technology advancements. How? Consumers are using two devices at the same time. Specifically, consumers are using their tablets as they watch TV, a trend that certainly has implications for bankers.

Recent Nielsen data, in fact, supports the notion that consumers use their tablets while watching TVs. From an April blog:

In the U.S., 88% of tablet owners and 86% of smartphone owners said they used their device while watching TV at least once during a 30-day period. For 45% of tablet tapping Americans, using their device while watching TV was a daily event, with 26% noting simultaneous TV and tablet use several times a day. U.S. smartphone owners showed similar dual usage of TV with their phones, with 41% saying their use their phone at least once a day while tuned in.

Though most U.S. banks have not even fully developed their tablet banking strategies, I can’t help but wonder what banking opportunities exist for catering to the dual-device consumer habits. Perhaps an issuer could seize on the shopping innovation opportunities by encouraging TV watchers to “buy” what they’re watching by luring them with merchant-funded rewards, for example. Certainly, TV watching helps consumers discover new things they may want to buy, which has major implications for commerce, and with it, payments.

Yesterday, eBay’s CEO John Donahoe spoke to the dual-device trend during eBay’s 1Q 2012 earnings call, telling listeners that the consumer trend prompted eBay’s mobile team to develop an app that lets TV watchers enter the TV shows they’re watching and have associated eBay inventory pop up on their mobile devices.

“So this whole notion of a dual-device experience, having an iPad or a smartphone in your lap while you’re watching TV, I think you’ll see a lot of shopping innovation around that,” Donahoe said on the call, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript.

Regardless of how a bank could profit from the doubling up of technology devices, the consumer behavior trend underscores the importance of creating simultaneous channel experience and finding ways that different touch points can work together better. In fact,  Brian Pearce, senior vice president and head of retail mobile channel at Wells Fargo & Co., discussed at the recent FinAi News 2012 conference the notion of simultaneous banking.

“Touch points are really exploding, and you need to think about how to be out their with your customers,” said Pearce. “You need to think about the different ways to use the channels. …No one has cracked the nut yet in banks, especially in the U.S. …You need to stay on top of it. There are more capabilities coming online all of the time.”