There's no question that mobile devices are the way we do everything these days and we'd be lost without them. We plan our meals, track our exercise, talk to each other, shop, read books, check the weather, the score, and, not to be left out, perform our digital banking. Many of us open our smartphones first thing in the morning before we're even out of bed. What time is it? What's on my calendar for the day? You're probably even reading this on your smartphone. All it takes is one good power outage and we realize just how attached we are to our devices when we can't recharge them. With this in mind, having a user-friendly mobile app and a host of mobile lending products available to your members is paramount. Capitalizing on the popularity of smartphones presents a wonderful opportunity to showcase your products to an already engaged audience hungry for information.
A study published earlier this year analyzed a cross-section of smartphone mobile bankers and reported the following:
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Smartphone users log in to their mobile banking app 125% more - 18 times in a month on average compared to desktop users who logged in only 8 times to their banking app.
- For those users who have the ability to do a quick balance check (login information only needed at the time of initial set-up), they checked their account balance 36 times a month on average... more than once a day!
- Taking into account all the monetary exchanges and movements made over the course of a month (transfers, bill pay, deposits), 50% of them were done via a mobile device, though they tended to be smaller in amount on average compared to the amounts moved on desktop.
- There are more than 6,000 banking apps; 352 new ones in the last year alone (up 6%).
- Of those 6,000 apps, there are 422 that now provide card controls.
- More and more banking apps are set up to allow P2P payments (person to person) such as Venmo and Paypal; 785 financial institutions or credit unions offer this option now - a 103% increase over the previous year.
- While P2P technology is on the rise, it is still not what mobile bankers appreciate the most. Being able to immediately report their card lost or stolen is what ranked as most important, coming in at 79% of those polled, followed by 70% who want to be able to reset their password via their app, and 63% say it would be having the ability to stop a payment.
- When it comes to opening an account online, 51% have successfully opened an account, and another 58% have reportedly attempted to open multiple accounts. The flip side of this is that 28% of those who started to open an account online failed to complete the process, leaving lots of room for improvement in this category.
- Relatively new to the mobile banking conversation (but not to credit unions) is offering loyalty rewards. A huge 62% of mobile banking users said they would like to see a rewards program implemented, based on transactions with discount coupons or points awarded to account holders activity.
- Mobile security remained a hot topic... There was an increased demand (58% of those polled) to offer biometrics (voice, fingerprint, palm) instead of pins and passwords to protect accounts.
With the ever-changing marketplace, being a successful mobile banking provider means being in touch with the top technologies of the moment. Offering creative ways to hold all those engaged smartphone users' attention by efficiently managing their mobile banking data will keep them returning for more.
