A study found that 21 percent of U.S. consumers age 18-34 use their cell phone for mobile banking transactions, compared to about 10 percent of the general population, media reported Tuesday.
Most Americans are still hesitant about banking with their cell phones and PDAs, but young people are increasingly coming around to the idea of mobile banking, according to a study by IBM's retail banking consulting practice.
Meeting the needs of these tech-savvy customers is going to be key for banks to stay competitive — the income of "Generation Y" is expected to surge over the next 10 years and exceed that of Baby Boomers.
So far, although most major banks offer mobile banking services, 89 percent of consumers do not use their cell phones to conduct mobile banking transactions, according to the study.
Right now, nine of the 10 top banks offer mobile banking to customers. Bank of America Corp. has the most mobile banking customers — about half a million, according to Aite Group analyst Nick Holland. But setting up the technology is just the first step. Going forward, banks will need to stay ahead of the curve in terms of both reputation and technology.
Banks are "pretty much keeping up with the Joneses," said Wendy Feller, head of the financial services practice for the IBM Institute for Business Value. "My bigger fear is that they're not pushing the envelope."
Losing mobile-banking business to other companies could mean losing out on billions of dollars of potential deposits. The Deloitte Center for Banking Solutions reported last week that Generation Y, born in the 1980s and early 1990s, has more than 75 million members and collective annual income of 1.89 trillion U.S. dollars. Deloitte predicts their earnings will increase by 85 percent over the next 10 years to 3.5 trillion dollars, exceeding Baby Boomers' earnings by some 500 billion dollars.
"It was maybe a little overheated last year, but is seeing some retrenchment as banks ask, what are we going to do to actually generate revenue?" said Wend Feller.
Source: Xinhua/AgenciesAuthor：china business Time：2008-05-24 From：china daily
