Study: Mobile banking's U.S. reach underwhelming

Two years after mobile banking was introduced in the U.S., analysis and forecasting firm ABI Research released its first m-banking report card, assessing 29 banks according to the discoverability and accessibility of their mobile services. According to ABI, BB&T, Eastern Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Northeast Bank, USAA and Wells Fargo earn "A" grades, followed by Bank of America and Chase with "B+" marks. Eight banks earn "B" and "C" grades--ABI contends that Carolina First, 1^st Bank, IBC Bank, Mercantile Bank, Regions, SunTrust and Synovus deserve "D" grades, and slaps M&T and Provident Bank with the dreaded "F." The report card adds that Citizens Bank, Comerica, HSBC and KeyBank have yet to roll out mobile banking efforts.

"People are asking ‘Is mobile banking taking off in the U.S.?' For that to happen, two things are required: the services must be easy to find, and accessible to a broad range of consumers . So the ‘grades' in this report card are not about subscriber numbers or any other measure of success, but about how consumer-friendly the banks' offerings are," said ABI senior analyst Mark Beccue in a prepared statement. "We have two observations/recommendations. First, mobile banking's reach in the U.S. isn't as good as it could be. If banks want mobile banking to be ubiquitous and available to as many consumers as possible, they'll have to promote text messaging in particular as the method of choice. Secondly, if you're in the retail banking business and you don't have a link--or at least a list of your mobile banking services--on your website's homepage, then you're undermining your whole effort. Discoverability is critically important."

For more on the ABI mobile banking report card:
- read this release

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