Newsroom

March 27, 2013

Fed report: Consumers using mobile services more

Fedsurvey-mobileservices
The Federal Reserve released its
second annual report Wednesday on
consumers' use of mobile financial
services.

March 28, 2013 – Consumers' use of mobile financial services grew 33 percent last year from 2011, but many consumers remain skeptical of the technology and have concerns about security and ease of use, the Federal Reserve reported Wednesday.

The Fed's report focuses on consumers' use of mobile technology to access a bank account, credit card or other financial account. As of November, 28 percent of all mobile phone users and 48 percent of smartphone users had used mobile banking in the past 12 months. This is up 7 percent and 6 percent from the previous period studied, respectively.

This is the second consecutive annual report from the Fed on consumers' use of mobile financial services. The report released Wednesday is based on a survey taken in November.

Some of the key findings:

  • Among the 90 percent of underbanked consumers with mobile phones, 49 percent had used mobile banking in the 12 months preceding November, up from 29 percent in December 2011.
  • Mobile phones may facilitate the extension of financial services to another 10 percent of the population that is unbanked; 59 percent of this group has mobile phones, half of which are smartphones.
  • More than half of mobile phone owners who do not currently use mobile banking say they have no interest in using it.
  • 42 percent of smartphone owners had used their phones to compare prices while shopping, and 44 percent had used their phones to browse product reviews in store.

The most common mobile banking activities continue to be reviewing account balances, monitoring recent transactions or transferring money between accounts.