Most P2P Mobile App Features Surging, According to Research
The Malauzai Software report says much of the growth is due to consolidation; FIs under $100 million in assets are finally launching an app.
P2P payments are surging at a brisk 250% clip, but not all payment services are catching on yet, according to the annual App Store Research from Malauzai Software, a Finastra company.
The Austin, Texas-based Malauzai, a digital banking provider for community financial institutions, released its monthly Monkey Insights “little-data” report, which highlights key trends in internet and mobile banking usage based on October 2018 data for 400+ banks and credit unions, covering 19.6 million logins from 980,000 active internet and mobile banking users.
Robb Gaynor, general manager digital banking for Malauzai, analyzes the company’s monthly to ascertain the trends financial institutions might find beneficial and interesting. “It’s no surprise that payments, specifically P2P features continue to surge, although we’re still waiting for Zelle to take the industry by storm. It’s clear that this is not the preferred choice of community banks and credit unions.” He added business mobile is finally gaining some traction. “The industry has definitely made progress when compared to last year’s data; however, there is still a lot of work to be done to ensure these apps provide actual value to business owners.”
The October 2018 report, completed in September 2018, counted all apps having anything to do with mobile banking. The results showed:
- Out of a total of 7,346 financial institutions, 6,351 have a mobile banking app representing 86% of FIs. That is up 9% from last year, the biggest year-over-year gain in the past three years. The report said much of the growth is due to consolidation, and FI’s under $100 million in assets finally launching an app.
- Sixty-seven different vendors helped banks and credit unions publish an app. As in years past, five vendors control 85% of the apps marketplace. Fiserv dominates with 50% more apps than the closest competitor. “Mainly due to the very commonplace, ‘slightly-branded’ app many Fiserv FI’s have rolled out,” the report said.
- Person-to-person grew once again. The report asked, “But where the hell is Zelle? It’s non-existent in terms of the numbers. More than 1000 financial institutions offer P2P within their banking app. Only 20 or so offer Zelle; everyone else offers standard bank-centric P2P.”
- Business mobile apps have doubled, but still underwhelm at just 549 apps. Business mobile is not growing anywhere near the pace of the consumer banking apps.
- Card management grew by 125% with 633 banks and credit unions now offering this feature with 181 offering card controls in a standalone app, usually provided by their card processor. The most popular feature is turning the card on and off, approximately 5.75% of end-users manage their cards via mobile banking every month.
This is the first year Malauzai compared all the big banks and how they are doing on design. “Yes, it is subjective, but we developed a very strong methodology. Chase won hands down. Cap One was second. BofA came in last by a wide margin.” Malauzai maintained ease of use and having a full array of features added to a good score.