As of late March, British bank customers were interacting with their bank accounts via mobile 73.8 million times per week, a fourfold increase over 18.6 million times per week a year before, according to the British Bankers’ Association. By contrast, British bank customers were interacting with their bank accounts via desktop Internet 66.9 million times per week in March, a more modest 10% increase from the year before.
Turning to good old-fashioned human interaction, Brits visited bank branches a mere 427 million times in all of 2014, which works out to 8.2 million visits per week, down 6% from 2013.
British bank customers had downloaded a total 22.9 million mobile banking apps in March 2015, up from a total 14.7 million in March 2014. Another two million Brits signed up for Paym, a mobile payments service. Meanwhile British banks including Nationwide and Barclays are experimenting with wearable devices such as wristbands that can be pre-loaded with cash and used for mobile payments.
Looking ahead, the BBA expects that mobile banking will account for a larger share of banking than Internet, telephone, and branch banking combined by 2020 (I would expect this will happen a lot sooner, considering that mobile is already even with Internet and branch banking combined).