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Fed Study: Mobile banking a rising trend

April 2, 2013

The Federal Reserve Board has released results from its second survey of mobile and financial services and the results show that mobile banking is on the rise. Nearly half (48 percent) of smartphone users said they had used mobile banking tools in the past year. That's up from 42 percent in the previous year's study.

Consumers used mobile banking tools mainly to review account balances and history, and to transfer funds between accounts, the survey said.

Additionally, remote deposit capture is on the rise, with 21 percent of mobile banking users having used the service in the prior 12 months.

The Fed also found that more than one quarter (28 percent) of all "feature phone" users  — as differentiated from smartphone users — had used mobile banking tools. That's an increase from 21 percent the previous year.

As for mobile payments, that category showed a marked increase as well, though it's still only beginning. The Fed survey found that 6 percent of smartphone users had made a payment using their handsets, up from 2 percent.

Use of mobile banking and payments is also high with consumers who have limited access to financial services. Of the 90 percent of "underbanked" consumers in the U.S. with mobile phones, 49 percent used mobile banking in the 12 months prior to the survey. That's a staggering increase from 29 percent the year before.

However, mobile payment providers still have some convincing to do. According to the study, less than a quarter of mobile phone owners said they are even interested in using mobile payments at this point.

The Federal Reserve Board study was conducted online by research specialist GfK between Nov. 16 and Nov. 27, 2012. The survey comprised 2,600 respondents.

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