Research

Federal Reserve Board Survey Shows Growth in Mobile Banking and Payments

FedReportAmericans are increasingly using their mobile phones to access bank accounts, credit cards, and other financial accounts, according to the Federal Reserve Board’s latest report on mobile financial services.

As of November 2012, 28 percent of all mobile phone users and 48 percent of smartphone users had used mobile banking in the past 12 months. This represents a significant increase from 21 percent in December 2011 for mobile phone users and 42 percent for smartphone users. While relatively less common, the use of mobile phones to make payments at the point of sale increased threefold over the same period, as 6 percent of smartphone owners reported using their phone to make a purchase.

Mobile devices have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. The Board’s report examines how consumers access their bank’s services using mobile phones (mobile banking), how they pay for goods and services with mobile phones (mobile payments), and how they use mobile phones to inform shopping decisions.

Mobile remote deposit capture doubles

The most common mobile banking activities continue to be reviewing account balances, monitoring recent transactions, or transferring money between accounts. Notably, the use of mobile phones to deposit checks has doubled between surveys, with 21 percent of mobile banking users having deposited a check with their phone in the 12 months prior to November 2012.

Mobile facilitates shopping decisions

Mobile phones are also increasingly used to help make decisions while shopping. Among smartphone owners, 42 percent had used their phone to compare prices while shopping and 44 percent had used their phones to browse product reviews in store. Almost two-thirds of those who had used their phone to do price comparisons changed where they made their purchase based on that information.

Mobile banking prevalent among underbanked Read More »

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Opinion

Mobile Money Industry Insights – May 3, 2013

News and insights from this week in the Mobile Money industry, by Monitise Director of Market Intelligence, Andrew Griffin.

Andrew Griffin, Monitise Director of Market Intelligence

Andrew Griffin, Monitise Director of Market Intelligence

STOCK MARKET

It’s results season and I’m calling out two items this week:  AT&T Q1 saw interesting data points on their smartphone penetration: smartphones represent 88% of cell phone sales and 70% of their installed base; this is higher than the national average, which only recently rose above 50%.

Starbucks FQ2: According to Starbucks, their mobile app is responsible for 10% of US payments – impressive – and processing a $3 billion transaction run-rate, “a scale that rivals many premier U.S. banks”. Let’s examine this a little further. On their conference call, Starbucks’ management cites over 10 million global active mobile-app users and nearly 4 million US transactions per week. This data equates to 1 transaction every 2¼ weeks per active user, assuming most of them are in the US. More likely, it’s about 5 transactions per week for 800,000 or so of the users, and almost none for the rest who simply have balances left on their cards.  Those 800,000 must be buying an awful lot of coffee to make up 10% of total US payments. Put another way, despite half of their customers owning smartphones, only a low single digit percentage of customers actually use the mobile app.  Starbucks is rightly praised for its app, but as a single-use app it seems that most consumers aren’t seeing the benefit over a card (30% of payment is via prepaid). We think this has bright implications for mobile wallets, which we believe will enjoy strong adoption and usage.

TECH/MOBILE COMMERCE

How banks can compete in mobile shopping is explained in an interesting Bank Systems and Technology article  on how banks are well-positioned in mobile commerce. The article draws on Alix Partners opinion on the ability of banks to use their data to offer mobile commerce in a way that improves customer loyalty. It all starts with a high engagement mobile banking app, and is supported by survey data that consistently shows “my bank” is the most trusted mobile wallet channel.

Switching to the UK, a Deloitte UK media consumer survey is a rich mine of UK demographic stats and penetration rates. “TV is no longer a top 3 favored device, but TV programs remain the favored media for content.”

MOBILE BANKING/PAYMENTS Read More »

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News

American Savings Bank’s Remote Deposits Jump 40% as Customers Embrace Mobile Banking

Below is a reprint of an article on Monitise customer American Savings Bank, authored by Chantal Tode and originally published in Mobile Commerce Daily on May 1, 2013:

ASB1In a sign of strong user interest in mobile banking solutions, American Savings Bank saw the number of mobile deposits its customers are making jump by 40 percent in March.

The bank launched mobile banking services in November 2012 and seen significant user adoption since, with customer adoption exceeding the bank’s first-year adoption goals within one and surpassing its two-year adoption goals with two-and-a-half months.

“American Savings Bank customers took to mobile deposits because it makes banking more convenient, eliminating the need to visit a bank branch or ATM to make a deposit, without sacrificing the safety and security customers associate with banking institutions,” said Carl Tsukahara, chief marketing officer at Monitise, San Rafael, CA. “It brings the branch and ATM functions right into the home.”

A valuable tool
American Savings Bank is based in Hawaii and is the first bank in the state to deploy mobile remote deposit capture.

The bank teamed up with Monitise to develop and deploy its mobile banking program, which includes mobile banking and payments functionality across its native smartphone applications, mobile Web offerings and SMS services. Read More »

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Video

American Savings Bank – ASB Hawaii Mobile Banking TV Commercial (video)

In yesterday‘s MobileFI blog post, we announced that Hawaii-based American Savings Bank is experiencing phenomenal user adoption since the launch of its Monitise-powered mobile banking and payments solution in November 2012.

American Savings Bank supported its product launch with a compelling marketing campaign, including the following television commercial:

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News

American Savings Bank Dials Up Mobile Deposits and Sets Adoption Record

ASB_logoMonitise today announced that Hawaii-based American Savings Bank is experiencing phenomenal user adoption since the launch of its mobile banking and payments solution.  As part of Monitise’s Bank Anywhere mobile solution, American Savings Bank is the first Hawaiian bank to deploy mobile remote deposit capture, resulting in mobile deposits skyrocketing by 40 percent in March.  In a mere four months since deployment, many of American Savings Bank’s active online banking customers are already using the Bank Anywhere services developed and deployed by Monitise.

“Customer adoption has literally exceeded all expectations, as we achieved our first-year adoption goals within one month and surpassed our two-year adoption goals within two and a half months,” said Rick Robel, Executive Vice President of Operations at American Savings Bank. “Integrating the Monitise platform with our Fiserv-based core, online banking and bill pay systems presented unique challenges, but with the support of all parties, Monitise produced the complete solution on time and within budget.”

American Savings Bank sought a best-of-breed mobile solution that was agnostic to its third-party systems and would allow them to create a mobile channel that was not dependent on other systems. American Savings Bank selected Monitise and launched its complete mobile services – including feature-rich mobile banking and payments functionality across its fully native smartphone applications, mobile web offerings and SMS services – in November 2012. American Savings Bank supported its product launch with a compelling marketing campaign and mobile enrollment has subsequently been tremendous.

“Strong customer adoption is crucial to a successful mobile strategy for all financial institutions,” said Todd Clyde, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Americas at Monitise. “As demonstrated by American Savings Bank, combining a well-executed mobile platform deployment with capabilities such as mobile remote deposit capture, and our adoption services will result in deep mobile customer engagement.”

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Opinion

Six Elements of a Successful Mobile Wallet Strategy for Financial Institutions

Darren Sugden, Monitise CEO, Asia Pacific

Darren Sugden – Monitise CEO, Asia Pacific

Mobile wallets will be the next battleground among businesses from various sectors – including financial institutions (FIs) in the fight for ownership of the consumer relationship. 2012 witnessed the introduction of myriad mobile wallet trials, and the mobile wallet wars will only continue to grow in 2013 and beyond.

For FIs, this is driving the emergence of a new mobile wallet paradigm, with the mobile account management application becoming a unique and powerful vehicle that allows FIs to defend their existing business and extend to new markets while strengthening their customer relationships and creating new revenue opportunities.

To win the battle for the mobile consumer, FIs must leverage key assets at their disposal in order to gain and maintain top of wallet status by driving deep customer engagement. The pace of innovation will continue to accelerate as consumers integrate mobile into every aspect of their lives — including their purchasing activity.

The potential for a fully disintermediated or weakened customer relationship is top of mind among FIs as new payment business models create serious risks for the status quo.

In their haste to introduce mobile offerings to keep pace with competitors, many FIs are taking a short-term, tactical approach, versus a long-term, strategic approach.

Some are simply “checking the box” by placing a mobile application in front of their existing online banking channel, architecturally pointing the solution inwards towards the FI’s internal systems. While providing a quick fix, the results often lack deep functionality and deliver a poor user experience.

Six elements are required for delivery of a successful mobile wallet strategy: Read More »

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