Mobile Banking 2016: World on the move for mobile banking

Our mobile devices – whether they are smartphones or tablet devices – are becoming ever more useful and integral to our lives. The ING International Survey on Mobile Banking 2016 reveals the share of mobile device users in Europe who bank by mobile has grown to 47%. And another 16% expect to join their ranks in the next 12 months.

The results are up from Mobile Banking 2015, when mobile bankers were a 41% share of European mobile device users, with another 15% expecting to adopt the technology that year. Responses were similar in the USA and Australia.

Noticeable differences exist between countries, however. Countries like the Netherlands may be approaching “peak mobility” with expected uptake slowing, while people in Romania, Italy and Poland are still predicting a big take-up of mobile banking over the next 12 months.

During the year to April 2016, the percentage of mobile device owners that took up mobile banking was higher in Austria, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic.

Mobile banking benefits persist
In all countries, at least 50% indicate their money management has improved as a result of using mobile banking services and technologies.

Turkey is the country where people seem to feel most positively about the effect of mobile banking on money management; people in Luxembourg appear to be the least positive on mobile banking.

The report further confirms that many people, though, feel they go on benefiting from the ability to bank by mobile over time – instead of the effects wearing off, as some might expect.

Mobile shopping on the rise
The proportion of mobile device owners who are shopping by smartphone or tablet is rising at an impressive rate in many of the 15 countries surveyed for Mobile Banking 2016.

The USA, France and the Netherlands see the biggest rises year on year in the proportion of people making purchases by mobile.

In the last 12 months, the most popular purchases were items of clothing, with electronics coming a relatively close second. Games, holidays, groceries and home-delivered meals were also popular.

There are differences – in Turkey, for instance, which boasts the world’s largest meal-ordering platform, home-delivered meals are particularly popular. And more people in the USA buy music by mobile device.

Confidently cashless?
People in many countries also agree they are using physical cash much less in 2016 than 12 months ago.

Turkey, Italy, Romania and Poland have particularly high shares who agree with the statement. In Turkey, 67% agree – the highest share in the survey and just ahead of Italy (66%).

Smaller shares opting for digital payments instead of cash are in Austria (28%) and Germany (31%).

More people are taking advantage of the convenience of mobile payment apps, our survey suggests. This partly reflects the wider rollout of such apps around the world in 2015 and 2016.

Across Europe, 40% of people now say they have used a mobile payment app, up from 33% in 2015.

We should note that internet polling will likely include more technology users and, by extension, people who bank, shop and pay by smartphone or tablet.