The Asia Pacific region leads the world - although there were increases globally from 2008 to 2010 for banking and financial transactions over mobile phones, Asia Pacific which has one of the highest densities of mobile devices, had the most significant growth in the adoption of mobile banking transactions.
An astounding 43% of Asia Pacific respondents make mobile banking transactions at least once a month, compared to 30% globally. But in Australia only 19% of mobile phone owners use their phone for banking monthly, partly due to the lack of awareness of mobile banking offerings. Surprisingly 40% of Australian respondents did not even know whether their bank offered mobile banking compared. This is much higher than the 10% in Asia Pacific and 24% globally.
In Australia, only 8% have conducted investment transactions over their mobile phones within the last 6 months, and only 5% in the last seven to 12 months. And interestingly, 87% had never made an investment transaction, such as selling a stock or bond, over their mobile. This is much higher than the 53% for Asia Pacific region and 71% globally.
Australia also lagged Asia Pacific region and global respondents when it came to the level of comfort in using their mobile phone for financial transactions. 21% of Australians are comfortable with mobile banking compared to 40% in the Asia Pacific region and 34% globally. Furthermore, 70% of Australians have never done any banking on a mobile device compared with 55% globally and 38% in the Asia Pacific region.
But as awareness and prevalence of mobile devices and comfort with their usage increases, this gap is expected to reduce quite sharply in the future, as the business advantages to both parties are quite substantial.
Peter Russell, KPMG Financial Services Partner sounded quite optimistic about the ability of Australian banks and consumers to catch up, saying “Australian banks have tended to let consumers find their mobile banking solutions and have focused on this channel as primarily a way to facilitate mobile payments. As Australian banks are rushing to develop and improve applications for smart phones and the Apple iPad tablet this gap will narrow very quickly. These numbers are not surprising given the maturity of mobile phone transaction activity. We predict growth in investment transactions as business conditions improve and the functionality of mobile applications to conduct transactions improves.”
"Mobile banking offers a real source of competitive advantage to Australia banks. While our results seem to show we lag other regions, Australian Banks are fast catching up following the release of a variety of mobile applications in the early part of 2009. Our survey provides Australian Banks with global and regional benchmarks of how popular mobile applications are likely to become in the very near future" Mr Russell advised.