Having won over the early adopters, has mobile banking hit a wall in terms of converting new users?
Proponents have argued that the notion is nonsense and the technology is still in its early days in what may eventually become the primary banking channel as the convenience of on-the-go banking continues to grow in popularity. However, several recent studies revealed proof that mobile banking may have plateaued.
Detractors point to a Federal Reserve study, Consumers and Mobile Financial Services 2014 as evidence that mobile banking is on its way to peaking. According to the data, the share of smartphone users who have made a mobile payment in the past 12 months has remained constant at 24% compared to 14% for all consumers.
The Fed also found that 30% of consumers said they used mobile banking over the past 12 months and among mobile banking users, only 38% made a single mobile remote deposit capture transaction over the past year.
In other research conducted for the United Kingdom-based ID security firm Intercede, 44% of consumers said they would never use a mobile banking service. Forty-eight percent said they had no interest in a mobile payment app and 63% cited security worries when it came to using a phone to move money.
Given these data points has mobile banking's shark jumped?
"There's no plateau," according to Doug Brown, a senior vice president at the Jacksonville, Fla.-based fintech company FIS. "We see steady growth in mobile."
Among FIS's mobile banking customers, after the platform has been up 18 to 24 months, one-quarter to one-third of members are active in mobile, he added.
"We see a little over 30% of mobile users using MRDC, said Brown, who also pointed out for a technology that has been around only five years, adoption has been fast.
Andrew Tilbury, chief marketing officer at the Henderson, Nev.-based fintech provider Bluepoint Solutions, said, "I think 39% is high, for a technology that is so young. To see MRDC take off at the same time check usage is declining, says quite a bit."
Alan Bernstein, president of Vertifi, a technology CUSO in Burlington, Mass., said mobile banking continues to rise.
"Across hundreds of credit unions, our most current stats demonstrate year-over-year growth in registered and active – active equals one or more deposits per month – service users in the 100% and 80% ranges, respectively," he said. "This is down from the previous five years when year-over-year growth across both categories averaged 150%.
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