The iPhone pretty much exclusively owns the smartphone space when it comes to businesses; there are very few Android users – less than 1% of business mobile usage originates from an Android device. The iPad does better at about double the business banking usage through smartphones, but it's still well below desktop business digital. Overall, the usage is low and the desktop rules business digital. The data doesn't lie. Mobile business banking has failed. But is it the fault of the chicken or the egg? Very few financial institutions have launched purpose-built stand-alone apps for business consumers – as stated above, about 400, which is a very low number. And with less than 10% of business users opting for mobile, we can call it a clear failure, but is that because there is a lack of usefulness and demand, or because the apps have failed to excite businesses and financial institutions in terms of their features and functions? Will businesses ever flock to mobile? Can we overcome basic facts, like the fact that business owners don't want their employees to have the banking app on their personal phones? And, as business owners shift toward the younger generations, might mobile banking become important? Do current business owners, who generally lean toward older generations, care enough to embrace mobile?

What we do know is businesses are slow to embrace mobile in a very general sense. Less than 10% of businesses with websites have a native app in the App Store, according to Malauzai Research Institute 2016 data. Maybe their lack of mobile banking use is influenced by the fact that the typical business – and there are 26 million of them in the United States – just doesn't care about mobile. That said, maybe not. The most successful mobile payments app comes from a business: Starbucks. Not Apple Pay or Venmo, but Starbucks, a business that publishes its own app and is profoundly changing how it takes payments (more than 20% of Starbucks' payments come through the app). And more businesses are following suit. WalmartPay has experienced serious growth in the past few quarters, and others such as CVS and Target are jumping in with their own payment-oriented apps. Who knows, maybe payments can be a driver for business mobile.

Today, businesses are not using the mobile channel. It is not so much a failure of the businesses or marketing, but more of a fundamental failure of solving important problems for businesses via mobile. Mobile simply does not solve big issues for businesses. Business mobile and business digital in general can and will be very successful. The value proposition is there, it's just not fully materialized.

Adding a payments function might help (thank you Starbucks for leading the way). Whatever the driver may be, this initial “mobile failure” for businesses can now be countered with “mobile innovation,” and in the end, businesses will benefit. And then we can celebrate business mobile success!

Robb Gaynor is the Chief Product Officer at Malauzai. He can be contacted at 512-961-5699 or [email protected].