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Consumers are ready for mobile banking, and they are getting impatient if their banks do not offer it, reports CardLine Global sister publication American Banker. "Adoption and usage are growing faster than anybody had anticipated," says Robert B. Hedges Jr., the managing partner of U.S.-based consulting firm Mercatus LLC, which on Thursday released a report commissioned by Visa Inc. The survey findings suggest that nearly one-third of consumers either are using mobile financial services, or they are considering doing so in the next year. By 2014, more consumers will access their accounts through mobile devices than through the Internet, Hedges predicts. Bankers tend to misunderstand consumers' interest in mobile by viewing the handset as a payment option that can replace cards or as a way to reach underserved segments, he adds. Consumers, however, see immediate access to financial data as the main benefit, and mobile banking has become at least as important to consumers today as online banking, convenient ATMs or local branches, Hedges says. More than 1,400 U.S. consumers over the age of 18 with mobile devices and bank accounts participated in the Mercatus study. In another survey, the results of which were published last week by Firethorn Holdings LLC, a unit of the U.S.-based mobile-phone hardware and software provider Qualcomm Inc., 59% of respondents expressed interest in using their handsets to make purchases at the point of sale just as they would use a debit or credit card. Those consumers also said they are interested in using their handsets to make price comparisons at stores (64%), to access credit card information (61%), and organize and track their reward accounts (59%). "Financial institutions and merchants have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to set the mobile trend now," notes the Firethorn report, which cites data from research firm TowerGroup suggesting some 10 million mobile banking users exist now and that the total could grow to 53 million by 2013. Firethorn commissioned U.S.-based research consulting firm StrategyOne to survey 1,350 adults online between the ages 18 and 64 who own a mobile phone and have a "financial instrument."
