AUSTIN, TX (March 6, 2014) -- Malauzai Software, a leader in mobile banking, today released its monthly Monkey Insights "little-data" report, the report where an overwhelming amount of big data surrounding mobile banking is broken up into digestible analytics sets that we like to call “little data”. This month’s report highlights key trends in mobile banking usage for January 2014 and is based on data from more than 144 banks and credit unions, covering 2.2 million logins from 158,000 active mobile users.
This version of Monkey Insights will compare and contrast end-user data for credit unions and banks. The bottom line is that the results seen by credit unions and banks in the mobile channel are different. Credit unions seem to be, in some ways, ahead of their bank counterparts. This starts with the number of apps in the App Store and Google Play all the way through enrollment levels.
Credit Unions Enroll Faster—Credit unions are enrolling members in mobile banking faster than banks are enrolling customers. Typically, credit unions see monthly growth rates of 9-10 percent during the first six-months after launching mobile banking; compared to banks who grow their user base an average of 7 percent per month. This runs counter to the belief that credit unions have an older member-base than banks. An interesting twist, on average credit union enrollment decreases for 1-3 months, nine months after launch and gets back on track with strong monthly growth after that.
Bank Customers Transfer More Money—Bank customers transfer money internally with higher values than credit union members and both end-users make the same amount of transfers in a month. In January, bank customers’ average transfer was $456 while credit union members average transfer was for $326. Both end users make approximately three transfers a month.
Log In Frequency and Session Duration—A bank customer logs in more frequently during the month, averaging 16.2 logins per month. This is compared to a member of a credit union who logs in 12.1 times per month. Session duration is longer for credit union members at 1 minute 25 seconds compared to 1 minute 15 seconds for bank customers.
Check Deposit Higher For Banks—Bank customers make check deposits at higher average values than their credit union member counterparts. In January, the average bank customer deposited $536 per item while the credit union member average was $385. Both make about two deposits per month.
Features and Functions—Bank customers and credit union members generally have access to the same mobile banking features, but the percentages of how many active end-users actually use these features is different. Nine percent of credit union members make deposits using a mobile device versus 5 percent for bank customers. On the other hand, 31 percent of bank customers look at transaction history versus 18 percent for credit union members, and 14 percent of active bank customers make internal transfers versus 19 percent for credit union members. Lastly, 11 percent of bank customers view check images via the mobile device versus 5 percent for credit union members.
When you look at the data above, what conclusions can you draw? Possibly the higher money transfer averages for bank customers points to them holding more money in their deposit accounts. Banks customers also log in more frequently showing higher engagement though their sessions are shorter. Customers and members also vary quite widely in the utility they get from mobile banking displayed in the percentage of usage of key features. While hard to speculate on causality, it is clear that customers and members are different and this influences their usage of the mobile channel.