The Big Banks’ Latest Trends in Mobile Banking

Big banks have been committed to working out their mobile strategies over the past two years and are now unveiling the dramatic results they’ve achieved. According to AlixPartners, big banks controlled 67 percent of the primary banking relationships by the second quarter of 2014, while credit unions had 14 percent. Mid-size banks controlled 11 percent, community banks 4 percent and all others at 4 percent. Plus, 78 percent of people who switched accounts went to a big bank, while only 8 percent went to a credit union and the remaining 14 percent to a community bank, mid-size bank or other. It’s an even bigger gap with young people—82 percent of these switchers went to a big bank, while only 7 percent switched to a credit union, and 11 percent to a community bank, mid-size bank or other. The study also shows that in 2014, 65 percent of the people who switched accounts said that mobile played a role in their decision to switch.

Chase Bank, for example, is one of the biggest retail banks in the country and has seen massive gains in retention and customer engagement, along with a steady loss in attrition and branch expense. Over a four-year period, the number of products and services per household has gone up, and attrition rates have fallen to an astonishing 9 percent this year. According to Chase, mobile app users have increased by 20 percent in the past year, mobile QuickDeposit by 25 percent, mobile QuickPay by 80 percent and mobile bill pay by 30 percent.

Not only are these great things for retention, but they are also business strategies that are saving the bank money. Today at Chase, 10 percent of all deposits are made via mobile. Over a seven-year period, teller transactions have been cut in half, driving a tremendous cost reduction. Since 2010, Chase has cut out over $3 billion in costs.

For the past two years, Chase, as well as other top big banks, including Bank of America, Citi, Wells Fargo and U.S. Bank, have been offering the top five mobile services—mobile banking, mobile bill pay, mobile deposits, ATM/branch locator and P2P payments. The list is growing, as three new services have recently become a standard for all of these banks—Apple Pay, pre-login balances and mobile-friendly websites.

Apple Pay
By January of 2015, 300 financial institutions had been approved for Apple Pay, and in April, that number jumped to 2,500. Today there are about 375 active financial institutions using Apple Pay, 250 of which are credit unions.

Mobile payments have a slow usage growth though—only 0.5 percent of people in 2014 with near-field communication (NFC) equipped phones were doing mobile payments regularly, meaning they did at least one mobile transaction per month. According to Deloitte, that number is forecasted to jump to 5 percent by the end of 2015.

Pre-login Balances
All five of the top big banks now offer the ability to check your balance without logging into mobile banking, and it’s a feature that is proving to be one more way to drive engagement and remove a barrier to mobile usage. Customers using Citi’s Snapshot, for example, sign in to mobile banking three times as often as those who don’t.

Mobile-Friendly Websites
Google announced in May of this year that there are now more Google searches on mobile than there are on desktop computers, a trend that greatly influences how people are making decisions to buy products.

In about six out of 10 cases, when people are shopping for bank products, they’re doing online comparisons, meaning banks now have to anticipate the growing percentage of website traffic coming from mobile. Currently, about 15% of banks’ website traffic is coming from mobile, which will only continue to grow.

Not only did Google announce the state of mobile search, but also starting in April, they’ve put a requirement in place that if your website is not mobile friendly, they’ll move the placement down on Google’s search results.

Of the top 10 banks, every single one has a mobile friendly website. Four out of the top 10 credit unions have passed the mobile friendly test.

As customers are flocking to digital services, the big banks are growing stronger. Credit unions and community banks can stay competitive, though, by continuously training their team to have a mobile mission and being disciplined enough to innovate constantly.