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Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
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Consumers and Mobile Financial Services
March 2012

Executive Summary

 

Mobile devices have increasingly become tools that consumers use for banking, payments, budgeting, and shopping. This report presents findings from an online survey, conducted in December 2011 and January 2012, examining the use of mobile technology to access financial services and make financial decisions.

Key findings of the survey include

Mobile phones and mobile Internet access are in widespread use

  • 87 percent of the U.S. population has a mobile phone
  • 44 percent of mobile phones are smartphones (Internet-enabled)
  • 84 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

  • 21 percent of mobile phone owners have used mobile banking in the past 12 months
  • 11 percent of those 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 (90 percent of mobile banking users)
  • Transferring money between accounts is the second most common use of mobile banking (42 percent of mobile banking users)

Mobile phones are also changing the way consumers make payments

  • 12 percent of mobile phone owners have made a mobile payment in the past 12 months
  • The most common use of mobile payments was to make an online bill payment (47 percent of mobile payment users)
  • 21 percent of mobile payment users transferred money directly to another person's bank, credit card, or Paypal account

Perceptions of limited usefulness and concerns about security are holding back the adoption of mobile financial services

  • The primary reason why mobile phone users had not yet adopted mobile banking was that they felt their banking needs were being met without the use of mobile banking (58 percent)
  • Concerns about the security of the technology were the primary reason given for not using mobile payments (42 percent) and the second most common reason given for not using mobile banking (48 percent)
  • More than a third of mobile phone users who do not use mobile payments either don't see any benefit from using mobile payments or find it easier to pay with another method

The "underbanked" make significant use of mobile financial services

  • The underbanked make comparatively heavy use of both mobile banking and mobile payments, with 29 percent having used mobile banking and 17 percent having used mobile payments in the past 12 months
  • 62 percent of the underbanked who use mobile payments have used it to pay bills
  • 10 percent of the completely unbanked report using mobile banking in the past 12 months, and 12 percent have made a mobile payment

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Last update: August 2, 2013