Mobile Banking Continues Popularity in the US
September 19, 2024
By: Steven Anderson
It’s been a strange new development, but over the last few months, it’s become clear that mobile payments is rather just a sideshow compared to one other breed of mobile money operations: mobile banking.
While there’s still some hesitation, and some concern over the value offered by mobile payments over cash-mobile banking has gained a lot of ground, and a new report from the American Bankers Association shows just how much.
Perhaps the biggest such move of late is that nearly 60 percent of adults in the US use mobile banking at least once a month. That’s a big step on its own, but it gets better.
Most users are satisfied with their current banking app, with about 75 percent calling it either “excellent” (33 percent) or “very good” (39 percent). Just one percent rated it “poor”, and only six percent considered it less than “good”.
Given that 10 percent of the study’s respondents didn’t own a mobile device to begin with, that suggests some very good things about how well mobile banking is received.
Further, over a third—37 percent—have used their mobile device for banking more than three times in a month, that delivers its own suggestions.
The biggest point here is that the value proposition for mobile banking is quite a bit larger than that for mobile payments.
While mobile payments offer convenience, it’s hard to do much more than shave a few seconds off a cash or card transaction.
That’s why the addition of loyalty programs becomes so important to the overall process. With mobile banking, users can check balances, make payments, and do several other things that would have required a stop at a computer or a bank branch to do, and people see clear value in shrinking that all down to a smartphone’s level.
While mobile payments still have room for growth and new opportunity, mobile banking is proving to be a welcome new addition to a lot of users’ lives.
In the end, it’s still all about value, and this represents an excellent object lesson for mobile payments makers to add value above all.
