Nearly (71%) three quarters of U.S. mobile bankers are either satisfied or very satisfied with their bank’s mobile and web offerings, which may be a key factor in maintaining loyalty among bank customers as physical branches decline – according to a study conducted by Yodlee Interactive.
The study found that 63% of U.S. adults who have a bank account indicated they stay with their current bank because of convenience. Customer service (48%) and the lack of/low account and ATM fees (42%) follow convenience as the other primary reasons. What’s more, 1 out of 3 respondents who use mobile banking view see their mobile banking experience as a reason why they stay with their banks (33%).
“Customer loyalty is a primary concern for banks,” Yodlee Interactive General Manager Joseph Polverari said in a press release. “Our findings suggest a corollary between one of banks’ biggest priorities - customer loyalty - and consumers’ usage patterns for mobile banking. With the anticipated growth of mobile banking in the next four years, banks that want to boost customer loyalty should strongly consider developing apps that increase the convenience of consumer banking.”
With the convenience of online and mobile banking, more customers are using these services, while banks are responding by reducing the number of physical branches.
Overall, 31% of U.S. adults who have a bank account indicate that they use mobile banking (i.e., use a smartphone, tablet device, or some other mobile device to access their banking information). Close to half (49%) of smartphone owners who have a bank account access their banking information on their smartphones, compared to 36% of tablet owners who have a bank account.
Banking app development has yet to fully catch on with consumers on tablets. Most smartphone owners who have a bank account use their bank’s mobile app to access their banking information on their smartphone, while most tablet owners access their banking information on their tablet’s mobile web browser. This is most evident among adults ages 18-44 (the largest demographic of mobile device users).
“Banks have focused on smartphone apps, but stretching the same app to work on a tablet seems to have backfired as consumers are opting for mobile web experiences on tablets,” Polverari said. “We believe that tablet optimized banking apps represent a major opportunity to reach customers with a better and richer experience."
Another interesting takeaway from the study is that smartphone owners who use mobile banking indicated they deposit checks on their smartphone device more than tablet owners indicate they deposit checks on their tablet device (33% versus 22%). Within this group of smartphone owners, those with a household income of $75,000-plus are twice as likely to deposit checks to their bank account (44%) as those who make less than $35,000 (21%) and nearly twice as likely to do so as those with a household income of $50,000-$74,900 (27%).