In the fall of 2016, the Atlanta Fed and six other Federal Reserve Banks asked financial institutions (FI) in their districts to participate in a survey to determine the level and type of mobile financial services they were currently offering or planning to offer. The Atlanta Fed conducted a similar survey in the district in 2014.
Financial institutions completed 117 surveys; they represent FIs of all sizes and types operating in the district (see chart below). The response rate of 8 percent should provide financial institutions with good directional information when comparing their own mobile banking and payments strategy. You can find the full report here. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston will be preparing a consolidated report for all seven districts later this year.
Key learnings from the responses to this survey include:
- Mobile banking has become a standard service of financial institutions, with 98 percent indicating they currently or plan to offer mobile banking.
- Competitive pressure and the retention of existing customers are the primary reasons for offering mobile banking.
- Consistent with the 2014 survey and numerous other mobile research reports, FIs cite security concerns by consumers as the greatest barrier to mobile banking adoption.
- FIs identify biometric methodologies as the security tool most likely to be used in their program.
- Over half (59 percent) currently or plan to support at least one mobile wallet. Their primary reason for offering the service was competitive pressure as mobile payments appear to be gaining traction among some consumers.
- Most of the survey respondents have a long-term outlook (three years or more) for mobile payments to reach a customer participation level of 50 percent.
Supplemental results breaking the data into the six asset-size segments will be made available in early February. If you have any questions about the survey results, please let us know.
By David Lott, a payments risk expert in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed