Mobile Financial Services Report Released: comScore
Mobile Payments Report Released by comScore
comScore has just announced the release of what may just be the first scientific study of mobile financial services and the mobile payments environment. The report is called “Mobile Financial Services: The Market Today & Opportunities for Tomorrow” and provides a look at the current state of the industry and mobile financial/mobile payment users, and highlights areas for potential growth in this rapidly evolving market.
The report leverages multiple comScore data sources to provide a comprehensive view of the mobile financial services market, including an overview of the current U.S. mobile landscape and insights into the mobile banking, credit card, insurance and brokerage sectors.
Mobile financial services adoption is highly dependent upon device technology and high bandwidth (3G) networks. A study of how mobile users access their banking accounts found that mobile Web browsing ranked as the most popular method for both smartphone (44.1 percent) and 3G users (53.3 percent), followed closely by mobile applications (48.1 percent of 3G users and 40.6 percent of smartphone users).
The relative parity among usage of browsers vs. applications for access to mobile banking indicates the growing importance of ease of use for accessing accounts and conducting transactions. Interestingly, the percentage of mobile bankers who used texting (SMS) for access to their account information was substantially higher among 3G users (41 percent) than Smartphone users (25 percent).
“The increasing adoption of smartphones and access to 3G networks, along with the rapid development of mobile apps, have created a fertile environment for the acceleration of mobile banking,” said Marc Trudeau, comScore senior director. “A seamless mobile banking user experience is necessary for this behavior to take hold, and the convergence of the aforementioned technologies is now making mobile phones a viable access point for personal banking transactions. Financial institutions hoping to capitalize on this quickly emerging consumer banking trend need to be ahead of the curve and understand how consumers are using the mobile channel today and how they would like to use it in the future.”
More information about the report can be found here.