Doing your banking…on a mobile phone. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. It took years to convince many consumers to have the confidence to do their banking on their home PCs. Now…says Citibank…the majority of its customers participate in online banking. The bank is the first to release an application that brings an easy interface to mobile phone banking. Citibank's CEO for North America Retail Ray Quinlan says it's initially being offered in Southern California…but will quickly spread nationwide…

"You either call us or you go to a branch. You register, we get a cell phone access code, what we're referring to is a T Pic a telephone personal identification code. It's a six digit number. We download the service to your cell phone in a one time transaction. Then you are all set up so the next time you look at your cell phone, you click on the icon that says Citi and the services will be available on your screen."

Users will be able to check balances, pay bills, transfer funds….just about anything they can do from a PC via the Internet. About how many people will use the mobile service, Quinlan says…

"There are 260 million cell phones in use in the United States today. And so the number of cell phones is completely permeating. And so we believe the people who naturally have an affinity for cell phones will adopt this as part of their lives almost immediately. But so far as the exact proportions I think would be highly speculative to say."

Citibank adds…the application doesn't store any of the customer's financial data…on the phone itself. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.