Of the 87 percent of American consumers who have a checking, savings, or money market account, the majority use some form of technology to interact with their financial institution.  This is according to the Consumers and Mobile Financial Services 2015 survey reported by The Federal Reserve. You may be thinking of the Hotels.com commercials featuring Captain Obvious right now... but digging deeper into the numbers in this annual survey (that has been published since 2011) generates a great deal of insight into how members are interacting with your credit union.

Specifically, the findings on how consumers are accessing their accounts, and the trends in their methodology should help guide your credit union on determining where budget and resources should be focused. The relative growth in accessing banking services through the current available methods are as follows:

• Mobile banking has grown 15% in the past 4 years.
  
  
• Online banking has grown 9% in the past 4 years.
  
  
• Physical branches have had 2% growth in the past 4 years.

• ATM’s have seen 1% growth in the past 4 years.
  
  
• Telephone banking has seen 0% growth in the past 4 years.

It is important to note that branch banking continues to lead the pack in terms of numbers, although its growth is relatively stagnant.  87 percent of consumers who have a bank account have visited a branch and spoken with a teller in the 12 months prior to the survey, conducted in December 2014. The second-most common means of access in the previous 12 months was ATM's at 75 percent, followed by online banking at 74 percent, with Mobile (35%) and Telephone (30%) following.

But it's the adoption of mobile banking that continues to lead in terms of growth year over year that credit unions should pay close attention to.  It's the only access method that has experienced an average growth rate of 5+% annually and consistently over the past four years.  And not surprisingly, in every year of the survey, younger consumers are more likely to use mobile banking, and usage for minorities, as well as those with some college education, continues to be high.

This data provides concrete evidence for the need to adopt mobile banking as a means for providing members access to the credit union, and as a means for attracting new members. Certainly, members will begin to look for alternative banking options if their credit union does not provide mobile banking, which is the fastest growing method of account access.