Fed sees increase in mobile banking, payments

by TMG

by: Brian Day

There’s no question mobile devices are changing the way consumers bank, manage accounts and make payments.

A recently released Federal Reserve report, “Consumers and Mobile Financial Services 2015,” highlights this evolution. Two of the reports most significant findings:

  • 87 percent of U.S. adults have a mobile phone
  • 71 percent of those mobile phones are Internet-enabled smartphones (a 10-percent increase from 2013)

Twenty-two percent of mobile phone owners reported having made a mobile payment in the 12 months leading up to the survey. That’s compared to 15 percent in 2012 and 17 percent in 2013.

Further, 39 percent of adults with both mobile phones and bank accounts used mobile banking. This amounts to a 33-percent increase in usage from the previous year. The most common task mobile bankers performed was checking their account balances or recent transactions, followed by transferring money between accounts. Receiving alerts from financial institutions (FIs) via text message, push notification or email came in third.

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