A Trend of Mobile Banking

A trend of making banking less personal is gaining popularity.

Bank branches keep on decreasing in number but their customers do not really care.

A recent survey has shown that modern banks are quite better in improving customers’ mobile experiences than real life experiences and physical locations. (Hayes 2015)

Clients’ preferences appear to be quite interesting. People are one third more likely to be satisfied with a mobile transaction than a visit to a bank branch.

Clients who often use physical bank locations are three times more likely to change their bank.

Survey has also shown that you are 2,3 times more likely to get annoyed by a bank visit than by a mobile transaction.

These numbers where obtained by Bain financial services practice survey which investigated 114,696 cases in banks across the world.

CNBC / Tetra Images / Getty Images

Gerard du Toit, a Bain partner who is in charge of the company’s retail banking sector, stated: ”Mobile is definitely taking off in terms of usage, but it's also a consistently better experience”.

"The younger generation is a little earlier in adopting, but the older generation is right behind them in terms of driving adoptions as well.”

Bain is convinced that key success goals of mobile  banking are:

• "extraordinary design discipline”
• "radical simplification”
• communication "anytime, anywhere chat and video calls”
• fast development and upgrading new and existing features
• "personalization… so that only relevant information is displayed to the user”
• "organizational agility" which connects departments and developers.

The industry research group CEB Tower has predicted that investment in mobile banking will increase by over 14.5 percent a year, creating an estimated $2.9 billion of capital investment by 2017. (Cox 2015)

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Mobile banking is rapidly expanding. On the other hand, people still matter. Making banking totally impersonal does not seem real. A big amount of bank customers still prefer visiting their local branches and discussing their financial issues face-to-face with their managers.

Individualised customer service will still matter in the nearest future. 

But do bank branches require investments?

Are you going to visit banks more often if they improve?

As a representative of a younger generation, I would take a side of mobile banking. What about you?

References:

Cox J. (2015), For the future of banking, it's all about the apps, CNBC, Available at: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/25/for-the-future-of-banking-its-all-about-the-apps.html.

Hayes A. (2015), The Future Of Mobile Banking (JPM, BAC), Investopedia, Available at: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/032015/future-mobile-banking.asp.

Hanna Hotsyk & Dorian Vincileoni