The mobile banking market is saturated, new app growth has slowed, business mobile has failed to grow as expected; P2P growth is low; and debit card controls are gaining popularity.
Those are among the findings from Austin, Texas-based digital banking provider Malauzai Software in its annual research representing the mobile app usage of 7,686 financial institutions, including 2,361 credit unions, across the U.S. Malauzai analyzed data financial institution from $50 million to $5 billion. The research revealed 6,114 financial institutions, 2014 credit unions, have a consumer mobile banking app
At approximately 75% coverage of all financial institutions, the reached a point of almost full capacity. In the past two years new app growth has slowed to about 6%-8%. The banks and credit unions left without an app are almost all under $100 million in assets.
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Key research findings include:
- At approximately 75% coverage of all financial institutions, the market has reached a saturation point. In the past two years new app growth has slowed to about 6%-8%. The banks and credit unions left without an app are almost all under $100 million in assets.
- Business mobile has failed to reach expected growth interest. Almost 400 financial institutions, and only 15 credit unions, have a business mobile banking app.
- P2P payments are growing, but overall usage and consumer adoption of bank-centric P2P is low.
- Debit card controls have gained much popularity, providing a high level of market differentiation.
- Wearables are gaining momentum, yet most financial institutions do not have an Apple Watch app.
- Standalone apps are basically ancient history. However, there are still a few standalones such as remote deposit capture and other random apps for features such as debit card management.
- Five primary vendors supply most of the apps: Fiserv, FIS, Jack Henry, NCR/Digital Insight and Malauzai. But more than 60 suppliers build apps for financial institutions.
- Market churn is high at about 15 %, as financial institutions seek differentiation by switching vendors.
"Our findings this year were a little surprising," Robb Gaynor, chief product officer for Malauzai, said. "The market is saturated, everybody has an app. We also found that businesses do not seem to care about having a mobile app, the growth in business mobile is very slow. And what surprised me the most was that finally banks and credit unions are launching debit card controls inside mobile banking." Debit card controls is a feature used to differentiate offerings from other financial institutions. "Product differentiation is key; delivering an array of unique features, design excellence and an incredible user experience."
Monkey Memo is an extension of Monkey Insights, an expanded format with a focus on more in-depth discussions of a specific topic. It is based on "Little-Data" factoids pulled from a vast array of actual digital-channel usage data, in this case augmented by primary research, focused on studying how many mobile banking apps there are in Google Play and The App Store.
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Roy Urrico
Roy W. Urrico specializes in articles about financial technology and services for Credit Union Times, as well as ghostwriting, copywriting, and case studies. Also: writer/editor of a semi-annual newsletter for Association for Financial Technology since 1997 and history projects funded by the U.S Interior Department, National Park Service and Warren County (N.Y.).
