Most Americans are still hesitant about banking with their cellphones and PDAs, but young people are increasingly accepting mobile banking, according to a survey.
Serving the needs of tech-savvy customers will be crucial for banks to stay competitive as the collective income of baby boomers' children is expected to surge over the next 10 years and exceed that of their parents.
So far, though most major banks offer mobile banking, 89% of consumers don't use their cellphones to conduct banking transactions, according to the study by IBM's retail banking consulting practice.
The results are based on a phone survey of 1,424 adults, ages 18 or older, conducted Jan. 24-28 by Opinion Research. To qualify, respondents had to own a cellphone and have a bank account. The margin of error was plus or minus 2 percentage points.
The study found that 21% of consumers ages 18-34 use their cellphones for banking transactions, compared with about 10% of the general population. These numbers, particularly for younger consumers, are expected to grow significantly.
Research firm Aite Group predicts that mobile-banking users in the USA, having ballooned from a negligible number at the end of 2006 to 1.7 million by the end of last year, will rise to 8 million by the end of this year.
By 2010, Aite Group forecasts, 35 million Americans will be mobile-banking users.
Nine of the 10 top banks offer mobile banking. Bank of America has the most mobile-banking customers — about half a million — according to Aite Group.
But setting up the technology is just the first step. Reputation is also important, because the top reason for avoiding mobile banking — given by 65% of the respondents — was fear that their personal information isn't secure. And technology is vital because, even though online banking is becoming more common, the notion of doing banking outside a branch remains in its early stages.
Source: usatoday.com
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