Newsroom

January 13, 2016

Survey: Mobile banking outpaces branch visits

A new survey from Javelin Strategy & Research shows 30 percent of adults used a mobile banking service weekly during 2015, while just 24 percent visited a physical branch weekly.

The Wall Street Journal reported that one in 10 consumers (or 25 million people) used mobile banking for the first time in 2015 and that the number of mobile banking users has doubled since 2010. Consumers who used tablets to bank increased tenfold. "That's the first time in the history of the survey that mobile users (and that means just smartphones and tablets, not via desktop computers) outpaced branch users," the paper noted.

The Journal said, "In the age of ‘fintech' … even tiny banks [are] now able to offer day-to-day services like check depositing or account management online or on a mobile device via third-party software providers."

The Journal also noted that 1,614 financial institution branches closed in 2015, with JPMorgan Chase closing the most at 195.