17% of U.S. Adults Use Mobile Banking, Survey Finds

The Mobile Marketing Association and its research partner, Luth Research, today released highlights from the latest U.S. Consumer Briefing, a monthly survey of U.S. adult consumers about their mobile marketing behaviors and opinions. The new survey shows that 17 percent of all adults currently use mobile banking, with interest levels suggesting that usage will grow to 22 percent within the next year.

Each U.S. Consumer Briefing features input from more than 1,000 U.S. adult consumers. In the latest survey, 92 percent of respondents said they own a cell phone, and 19 percent of that subset currently do banking with their phone, an amount equivalent to 17 percent of all U.S. adult consumers.

The survey further revealed that consumers' most common form of mobile banking uses a mobile Web browser (11 percent of respondents), followed by SMS (8 percent) and applications (5.5 percent). Over the next 12 months, mobile-Web-based banking will grow to 14 percent, while applications will grow to 8.5 percent. SMS mobile banking usage will likely remain flat.

Based on the survey, about half of U.S. consumers express interest in accessing one or more banking services via their mobile phones. Among these, respondents said they generally prefer informational services — such as viewing account balances and locating branches or ATMs — ahead of transactional services, especially when the latter involve a third party.