AUSTIN, TX (January 28, 2014) -- Malauzai Software, a leader in mobile banking, today released a "little-data" report from its Monkey Insights service, highlighting key trends in mobile banking usage for December 2013. The study is based on December data for 130+ banks & credit unions, covering 2.1 million logins from 135,000 active mobile users.
A Year in Summary - Little Data Factoids
This version of Monkey Insights will cover a range of interesting data for both the month of December and 2013 in total. Overall, in 2013 we tracked 16 million mobile banking logins for 206,000 unique end-users. That’s a lot of data! So instead of taking it all on, we will break the big data into digestible analytics sets that we like to call “little data.” Also remember, the beauty of Monkey Insights is that all of this data is based on actual usage, and lots of it.
• More Checks in December. Our banks and credit unions processed 25 percent more mobile check deposits in December than the previous month. There is always a monthly increase as check capture is on the upswing, with normal growth closer to 4 percent to 5 percent per month. Clearly grandma and grandpa were sending checks to their kids and grandkids for the holidays. In January, we have returned to the regular processing growth rates. This type of seasonality is really interesting, and provides motivation to get grandparents using P2P in the coming year.
• iPad Users Have Lots of Money. iPad users move money at 85 percent higher values than Smartphone users, with an average annual value of $691. This includes account transfers, mobile check deposit, Picture Pay and bill pay. There is no clear explanation for this other than iPad users have more money, spend more to purchase their mobile device (iPad starting price is $375 vs. free for Smartphones) and trust the mobile channel for sending larger amounts.
• Slowest Day for Mobile Banking in December is Christmas Day. The slowest day in December by a factor of 60 percent is Christmas Day for overall mobile banking activity. Even with all those new Smartphone and tablets being given as presents, people clearly download games first, not mobile banking apps. But also interesting is that the second busiest day of the month was December 26. Maybe the U.S. should adopt Boxing-Day as a holiday like in the UK, and we could give mobile bankers another day of reprieve.
• Top Mobile Banking Features. The top three tasks performed by mobile bankers stayed consistent in 2013: reviewing check balance, reviewing transaction history and transferring money internally. Reviewing check and deposit images is now a close fourth and a new service, debit card management, an even closer fifth. Depositing checks with your mobile device rounds out the group and is the sixth most used feature in mobile banking. It is great to see an electronic payment feature such as debit card management rise up in the rankings. This is proof-positive that financial institutions can play a strong role in the e-wallet space.
• End-Users Growing by 4.3 percent per Month. Organic growth continues at pace in 2013 with an average community financial institution growing their usage base by 4.3 percent per month. Another interesting fact is that banks and credit unions that have launched in the past six months can see growth averaging 12 to 13 percent per month for the last two months of their curve, i.e. growth really accelerates during months five and six after launch. Android monthly growth is even higher at 6.5 percent per month, but the iPad beats all, with average growth rates approaching 15 percent.