CHICAGO—Malauzai Software announced from BAI Retail Delivery Thursday that credit unions have a considerable lead over banks when it comes to iPhone apps.

The provider of mobile banking apps for community financial institutions made the announcement as part of its results of a recent mobile app deployment study that counted bank and credit union iPhone apps in Apple's App Store. The study looked at financial institutions in the asset range of $50 million to $15 billion.

While the study showed that overall, 55% of financial institutions in this range had deployed an iPhone app. Approximately 65% of credit unions in the asset range had apps available in the App Store, compared to only 51% of banks.

Not surprisingly, when the study group was further segmented, smaller institutions had a lower penetration rate. Financial institutions in the $50 million to $100 million asset range had a penetration of only 29%, while those with assets from $1 billion to $5 billion led with 89% penetration. However, institutions in the $5 billion to $15 billion range came in slightly lower, at 85%.

While a penetration of 55% may seem low given all the hype about mobile, Robb Gaynor, Malauzai's chief product officer, told CU Times mobile adoption is actually expanding at a reasonable pace.

“Last year when we looked at this, penetration was about 37%,” Gaynor said, “so that's a 40 to 50% growth in one year. Give it two or three more years and we'll be close to 100%.”

Gaynor also pointed out that the study doesn't necessarily paint a complete picture.

“This doesn't mean necessarily mean that these financial institutions don't have mobile,” he said. “They may be doing text or browser-optimized banking.”

He also acknowledged that the survey doesn't take into account financial institutions that are currently in the process of deploying a mobile solution.

“About 30% of our own customers have signed, but have not yet deployed our solution,” he told CU Times.

Commenting on credit unions' apparent lead in mobile deployment, Gaynor said that just within Malauzai's client base, he's observed that in a given asset range, credit unions are often more innovative than banks.

“They like to go fast,” he said.

Instant Insights /

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