Almost one in two US smartphone users admit they wouldn't last a day without their mobile, and many consider their devices more important than daily staples such as coffee and television, according to a new report by Bank of America.
Of those who use their phones for banking, almost one-third (31%) of the 1000 smartphone users polled say they log on at least once a day, and four out of five (82%) access their accounts at least once a week or more.
Marc Warshawsky, senior vice president and mobile solutions executive at Bank of America, says: "Bank of America now has more than 15 million active mobile banking users who access their accounts on a mobile device over 165 million times per month. We've seen this number continue to grow and recently the number of monthly mobile banking logins surpassed online banking logins for the first time."
Increasingly, consumers are using their mobile banking apps to perform more sophisticated transactions, such as mobile cheque deposit. According to the report, nearly six in 10 (58%) of those surveyed have used mobile check deposit, and nearly four in 10 (38%) use it frequently.
"Mobile cheque deposit has been one of the fastest growing digital services we offer," says Warshawsky. "Customers appreciate the convenience of being able to complete their deposit anytime, anywhere and are depositing an average of 170 thousand cheques via mobile device every day."
But while mobile and online banking services are becoming more widely used, visits to bank branches also remain high: 84% of respondents have visited a bank branch within the past six months. This is true among all the age groups polled, with nearly the same percentage of millennials ages 18-34 (83%) saying they have visited a bank branch in the past six months as those ages 35 and older (85%).
This news may be less welcome to the bank, which claims to have spent almost $500 million on the development of mobile products and services over the past three years and has been actively cutting branches to cater for the digital generation.
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