News

Brits download financial apps, but don’t use them

December 7, 2018

The U.K. is the third largest market in Europe for financial apps, increasing their download activity 19 percent since 2017. However, Brits are remarkably blasé about using the apps they’ve downloaded, according to data from Wealthify, an online investment service.

The company’s research revealed that more than 67 percent of smartphone users have added at least one financial app to their device. However, more than 11 million downloaded financial apps are never used. 

Wealthify found that the majority of financial apps downloaded by the public are online banking apps (93 percent), compared with 7 percent for saving and 5 percent for investing. 

Collectively, only 15 percent of the population use apps for saving or investment, while almost half actively use resources such as voucher apps (47 percent) and cashback apps (46 percent) for things like shopping and eating out.

The heaviest users of financial apps are 35- to 44-year-olds, who have on average 2.6 financial apps on their smartphone or tablet. 

Asked what goals they had in mind when downloading them, respondents named efficient access to online banking (58 percent); financial management (57 percent); and day-to-day budgeting (22 percent).

The 18–24 age group was most likely to see the value of financial apps to help them start saving or investing; the 35–44 age group was most likely to download apps with the goal of managing their finances, Wealthify said.