• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, January 31, 2011

Driven by wider smartphone adoption and regular mobile Web use, the number of Americans banking by mobile phone will jump from 10 million today to more than 50 million by 2015, according to a new Forrester report. But the research firm warns that financial institutions face a key challenge reaching that target: convincing customers that they can do something new and different with their mobile phones than they can't do online.

In a recent Forrester survey of more than 3,000 consumers, for example, the main reason (37%) given for not using mobile banking was that customers saw no value in using it. One in four don't bank via mobile because they're content with existing options like ATMs and online. To expand to one if five adults on mobile phones, analyst Emmet Higdon says banks will have to add innovative new features, like on-the-go deposits, and mobile-friendly versions of existing services. Read more here.