AT&T Mobility will preload a recently launched mobile banking platform on its handsets later this year. The platform is now available for download on more that 30 AT&T Mobility devices, which means 30 million wireless handsets in the market.

The nation-wide launch of this product follows an earlier announcement, in which the carrier mentioned its deals with individual financial firms and its intention of launching a mobile banking service. The carrier claims that its partners, Wachovia Corp., SunTrust Banks Inc., Firethorn Holdings L.L.C, and Firethorn’s partner CheckFree Corp., will provide mobile banking services to millions of their customers. AT&T Mobility assures that its service is absolutely free except for data charges.

Customers, who want to avail of this service, must register at their bank’s Web site. On doing this, they will receive a one-time initialization code, which will enable them to activate their phone’s mobile banking service. The code links their bank account to the mobile phone. The final step is to create a personal identification number to guarantee security.

The mobile banking platform is not devoid of security measures. It enables encryption of all data, and customers can deactivate the service if they lose or misplace their handsets. Moreover, the customers can add new payees only from their online banking account and not from the handset.

Colorado-based FirstBank, Synovus, Regions Financial Corp., America First Credit Union and Arvest Bank Group are the other financial organizations, which either offer AT&T Mobility’s mobile banking service or have signed agreements with it to offer mobile banking services.

According to the carrier, “adoption rates have been higher than expected and have resulted in a 15 percent rise in traffic to the bank’s Web site” after its first banking partner, BancorpSouth, launched mobile banking services earlier this year.

AT&T Mobility is not the only firm that has taken constructive steps in the mobile banking industry. GSM Association has recently announced that a dozen mobile operators intend to conduct experiments in contactless mobile payments for a few months in the near future. The U.S, Australia, France, Ireland, Korea, Malaysia, Norway, Singapore, Taiwan, Turkey and the Philippines are some of the countries that will participate in these trials. The trials are part of GSMA’s Pay-Buy-Mobile initiative for Near Field Communications payments.

CheckFree has separately announced that its strategy of mobile banking has now expanded to include WAP, SMS, and other applications embedded on mobile devices.