Millennials lead mobile banking charge, study says
No surprise here: Millennials lead the way in adoption of mobile banking, at 47 percent, while boomers lag at 23 percent. However, millennials are also the fastest to jump ship due to a frustrating user experience, according to a study by Jumio and Javelin Strategy & Research.
The study found that among all generations, the most popular transactions are P2P payments, at 33 percent. Other popular uses of mobile banking include funds transfer and transaction monitoring.
Javelin and Jumio also said their research found that the user experience for mobile banking "asks too much of millennials"; 43 percent have abandoned mobile banking activities versus 25 percent of Gen Xers and 13 percent of Baby Boomers.
Overall, the most frequent cause was that the process took too long (36 percent overall; 38 percent for millennials). Participants also cited inability to remember their password (28 percent) as a reason for abandoning a transaction.
Of those who abandoned at least one mobile activity, 31 percent shared their negative experience with family or friends, opened an account with another FI, filed a complaint or stopped patronage altogether.
Among all age groups surveyed, information security and fear of fraud were the top two concerns. Baby boomers were the most concerned: 55 percent had fears about security; 51 percent worried about fraud.
"While online banking has reached parity across age groups, mobile banking adoption is still accelerating," said Al Pascual, senior vice president, research director and head of fraud and security at Javelin. "To capitalize on the growing demand for mobile banking as millennials grow in spending power, financial institutions must simplify user experience and address ongoing concerns around security and fraud."