skip to main navigation skip to secondary navigation skip to content
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
skip to content

Consumers and Mobile Financial Services
March 2013

Executive Summary

Mobile devices have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. In December 2011, the Federal Reserve Board conducted its first survey of consumers' use of mobile financial services, and released a summary report in March 2012 (referred to as the 2011 survey). Given the rapid pace of developments in the area of mobile finance, the Board conducted a second survey in late November 2012 to examine trends in adoption and use of mobile banking and payments (referred to as the 2012 survey).

This report presents findings from the 2012 online survey, which examined consumers' use of mobile technology to access financial services and make financial decisions. The findings from the current survey are also compared with the findings from the previous survey. This report looks at how consumers use their mobile phones to access their bank's services, make payments, and inform their shopping decisions.

Key findings based on the responses to the 2012 survey include:

  • Mobile phones and mobile Internet access are in widespread use

    • 87 percent of the U.S. adult population has a mobile phone
    • 52 percent of mobile phones are smartphones (Internet-enabled)
    • 87 percent of smartphone users have accessed the Internet on their phone in the past week
  • The ubiquity of mobile phones is changing the way consumers access financial services

    • 28 percent of all mobile phone owners have used mobile banking in the past 12 months, up from 21 percent in December 2011
    • 48 percent of smartphone owners have used mobile banking in the past 12 months, up from 42 percent in December 2011
    • 10 percent of those mobile phone users not currently using mobile banking think that they will probably use it within the next 12 months
    • The most common use of mobile banking is to check account balances or recent transactions (87 percent of mobile banking users)
    • Transferring money between accounts is the second-most common use of mobile banking (53 percent of mobile banking users)
    • 21 percent of mobile banking users have deposited a check using their mobile phone--double the incidence in December 2011
  • Mobile phones are also changing the way consumers make payments

    • 15 percent of all mobile phone owners have made a mobile payment in the past 12 months, up from 12 percent in December 2011
    • The share of smartphone users making a mobile payment in the past 12 months has effectively remained constant at 24 percent
    • The most common use of mobile payments was to make an online bill payment (42 percent of mobile payment users, down from 47 percent in 2011)
    • 6 percent of all smartphone users have made a point-of-sale payment using their phone in the past 12 months, up from 1 percent in December 2011
    • 22 percent of all mobile phone users expressed an interest in using their phones to buy things at the point of sale
  • Perceptions of limited usefulness and concerns about security continue to be the main impediments to the adoption of mobile financial services

    • For mobile banking, the primary reason mobile phone users had not adopted the services was that they felt their banking needs were being met without the use of mobile banking (54 percent, down from 58 percent in 2011)
    • For mobile payments, concerns about the security of the technology were the primary reason given for not using services (38 percent, down from 42 percent in 2011)
    • Concerns about the security of the technology were the second most common reason given for not using mobile banking (49 percent, up from 48 percent in 2011)
    • More than a third of mobile phone users who do not use mobile payments don't see any benefit from using mobile payments and find it easier to pay with another method
  • Smartphones are changing the way people shop

    • 42 percent of smartphone users have used their phone to comparison shop at a retail store, and 32 percent have used it to scan a product's barcode to find the best price for the item
    • 64 percent of consumers who use their phones to comparison shop in a retail store have changed where they purchased the product as a result of the information they found
    • 44 percent of smartphone users have used their phone to browse product reviews or get product information while shopping at a retail store, and 70 percent of them changed the item they purchased based on this information
    • 64 percent of mobile banking users have checked their account balance before making a large purchase in the past 12 months, and half of them have decided not to purchase an item as a result of their account balance or credit limit
    • Approximately 27 percent of all mobile phone users are interested in receiving and managing discount offers and coupons on their phones, or receiving location-based offers
  • Mobile phones are prevalent among unbanked and underbanked consumers

    • The share of consumers who are unbanked was effectively unchanged, declining slightly to 10 percent in 2012 from 11 percent in 2011
    • The share of underbanked consumers has remained constant at 10 percent
    • 59 percent of the unbanked have access to a mobile phone, half of which are smartphones
    • 90 percent of the underbanked have access to a mobile phone, 56 percent of which are smartphones
    • 49 percent of underbanked consumers report using mobile banking in the past 12 months

Back to Top

Last update: August 2, 2013