Mobile Banking Zooming Ahead

If anyone has any doubt that mobile banking is growing, all they have to do is look at US mobile numbers from ABI Research showing that the number of users jumped from 400,000 in 2007 to 3.1 million last year.

"Mobile financial services have the potential to be bigger than mobile TV and premium mobile content in terms of numbers of subscribers," said ABI analyst Mark Beccue. "Almost anybody over the age of 18 is a potential user."

Enthusiasm for mobile banking technology and ease of use are widespread, but usage estimates vary.

While almost one-quarter of respondents to a Fiserv survey of adult mobile phone users said they used mobile banking, a Yankee Group poll was more conservative, finding only 3% of US mobile phone owners saying they carried out banking transactions on their device weekly in 2008.

Growth in mobile banking is not limited to the US.

According to Juniper Research, mobile banking will surge worldwide. The firm projects that over 150 million mobile subscribers will access banking services on their mobile device in 2011, with the majority of mobile banking users coming from the Far East and China, followed by Western Europe and North America.

"Mobile banking is a key element in banks' distribution channel strategies as they compete to attract and retain customers," said Howard Wilcox of Juniper.