Mobile banking is not popular with Americans

An accounting firm KPMG released the study where it polled 500 U.S. consumers on the use of mobile banking services. The survey suggests that Americans are still far from treating m-banking as an integral part of their lives citing different kind of reasons preventing them from use of such services at full capacity. The report found only 9% of the respondents had tried mobile banking in comparison with 76% consistently using Internet-based banking services.

95% of the polled said they felt very uncomfortable with performing financial transactions with their mobile devices which made them cancel mobile-based purchases on retailers’ websites. Nearly 48% of the polled cited security issues as the main factor that restrained them from banking on their mobile phones.

Interestingly, a significant number of the respondents told they believe that m-banking is important but at the same time they admitted that its importance is not high enough to pay extra fees for it. About 19% of the surveyed said they have some plans to use mobile phones for banking within the following 12 months and only 7% of them said they are willing to pay a convenience fee for the service.

Meantime, while most of the major banks including Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, offer mobile banking nearly 68% of respondents confessed their banks do not offer such services. According to Carl Carande, a principal in KPMG LLP's Advisory and Banking and Finance practices, it is “clearly more perception than reality” and customers are more likely unaware of the services availability rather than mobile banking is not offered by their banks.