Nearly 20 mn access bank account via mobile phone in March

A new study has revealed that about 20 million mobile users across the five European markets of UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy, representing 8.5 percent of mobile subscribers in these markets, accessed their bank account via a mobile phone in March.
Since August 2010, there has been a 15.4 percent rise in mobile bankers, which has been driven by smartphone users who accounted for 70 percent of the mobile banking market in March.
Among smartphone owners the number of banking users has risen by 40 percent since August 2010. During the three month period ending March, France boasted high penetration of mobile bankers in EU5 with 10.3 percent of consumers accessing bank accounts through their mobile phones.
Spain ranked second with 10.2 percent penetration. Germany had low penetration of mobile banking users with 6.8 percent accessing their bank accounts. In the EU5 region, 8.5 percent of mobile subscribers overall accessed mobile banking, while 5.1 percent accessed credit cards and 5.2 percent accessed electronic payments via their mobile device.
UK mobile phone owners were conservative with regards to accessing credit card accounts and only 3.9 percent of the mobile population used the service in March. On the other hand, mobile banking reached 8.6 percent of the total UK mobile market, making it the third largest market for mobile banking in Europe.
In the EU5 countries, nearly two males accessed mobile banking for every one female. Among age segments, 25-34 year olds accounted for the highest percentage of mobile banking users, about 27.9 percent, and were also the highest indexing segment.
Mobile users aged 55 and older showed low relative usage of mobile banking. Smartphone users accounted for nearly 70 percent of mobile banking users, despite accounting for 35 percent of the total mobile population. Apple users exhibited the highest relative usage of mobile banking (index of 393), followed by users of Google Android (index of 245).
About 82.4 percent mobile subscribers in EU5 countries sent text messages during the three month period ending March, 30.3 percent used applications, 31 percent used browser, 25.6 percent listened to music, 19.8 percent accessed social networking site or blog, 14.9 percent accessed news, 25.6 percent played games and 34.5 percent used smartphone.