Banks Falling Behind Pace of Innovation in Mobile Apps

A new survey by CSC and Finextra found that many banks struggle to quickly release new mobile apps, citing competition for internal IT resources.

The proliferation of new devices and operating systems makes the pace of change in mobile hard for many organizations to keep up with. But banks seem to be particularly apt to fall behind the pace of innovation in mobile, according to a new study released by CSC and Finextra.

The survey found that 45% of the 74 institutions involved in the study said it takes them more than 6 months to build a new mobile app, and 22% of them said it would take more than 12 months to build a new one.

Banks are now seeing more logins through their mobile channel than online, yet the survey found levels of investment in mobile applications that indicated that banks aren’t investing new mobile applications. Nearly half (45%) of the institutions in the study said that they are investing less than 5% of their IT budget in mobile development, suggesting that those banks are more interested in maintaining their current mobile apps than building new ones, the study concluded.

[For More On Mobile BAnking Apps: How To Get The Most Out Of Mobile Banking Apps]

In-house resources was cited as the biggest factor impacting speed to market with mobile applications by 78% of the respondents. “With many projects within the wider IT organizations competing for funding, business analysts, developers and managers, this is to be expected,” the report noted.

Those banks in the study that offshored part of their mobile application development saw improved speed to market. Only 8% of the institutions that offshored some of their mobile development said it would take more than a year to build a new mobile app, compared to 24% among those banks that built their apps in-house. Only 12% of the respondents said that they have completely offshored their mobile development.

[The mobile employee -- as well as the mobile customer -- are here to stay. Is your bank prepared? Learn how to set up and maintain a mobile infrastructure that can support today's needs and tomorrow's expected mobile demands. Attend the From BYOD to 802.11ac: How to Build A Next-Generation Mobile Infrastructure session at Interop 2014 in Las Vegas, March 31-April 4.
You can also REGISTER FOR INTEROP HERE.]

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio