ABA Research: Mobile remains the best choice for banking

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Mobile apps remain the most popular choice for banking consumers, according to a new survey by the American Bankers Association. Research firm Morning Consult asked more than 2,200 senior citizens in the United States about the methods they used most to manage their bank accounts in the past 12 months. Forty-five percent of banking customers cited mobile apps or other mobile devices as their top option—the third year in a row that mobile banking was the most popular choice among consumers. Twenty-seven percent of customers prefer to bank online on a laptop or PC. Bank branches, which fell to 10% during the pandemic, rose to 14% at the expense of other channels such as ATMs (which went from 8% last year to 6% this year) and phones (which went down from 7% last year to 3 % this year).

Different generations had different preferences for how they access banking services, according to the survey. More than half of Generation Z, millennials and Generation X use mobile banking apps most often, while the majority of baby boomers most often use online banking (38%). One in five children (20%) visit bank branches often, while only 6% of Gen Z like to visit branches.

The ABA’s survey results are consistent with the FDIC’s most recent National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households, which found that the number of banked households who cite mobile apps as their preferred banking method jumped from 15.1% in 2017 to 34%. in 2019 to 43.5% in 2021.

“As mobile banking has helped over the past decade thanks to banks’ investments in technology, we’ve seen more and more consumers embrace their smartphones and tablets for everyday transactions,” said Brooke Ybarra, ABA’s senior vice president of innovation strategy. . “After the pandemic made social interaction more difficult, more and more people turned to easy-to-use technology to deposit checks, pay bills or send money to friends, and never looked back. At the same time, visiting a branch office continues to serve an important role even though less for most bank customers, especially when it comes to more complex situations.”