Mobile Banking Mostly Appeals to Younger Consumers

Though industry observers generally expect mobile banking to become a mainstream technology with consumers, consumers ages 18 to 25 remain the biggest users of the service, new research suggests.

Most consumers 45 and older do not see the added value in mobile banking and have expressed security concerns, concludes New York-based management consulting firm Auriemma Consulting Group in its most recent Cardbeat market-research report. Auriemma based the findings on the results of an online survey of 535 credit and debit cardholders it conducted in March.

Incentives are a main reason consumers younger than 45 sign up for mobile banking, cited by 40% of respondents, according to the report. Some incentives include bonus rewards and a $5 credit card statement credit, the report notes.

"Those incentives might be enough to push someone who was on the fence about using mobile banking," Nancy Stahl, Cardbeat editor, tells PaymentsSource.

Though 13% of respondents claim to use mobile-banking services occasionally, Stahl expects smartphones' growing popularity to increase the number of users. "You don’t necessarily need a smartphone to access mobile-banking services, but [mobile-banking applications] help and are easier to deal with," she adds.

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