Mobile banking active user growth accelerated for two of the nation’s largest banks this quarter.
Wells Fargo, which had a challenging quarter in many other ways, had a particularly strong quarter in growing mobile banking users.
JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co. (as well as Citigroup and PNC) reported their third-quarter earnings today. While Chase and Wells had quite different quarters from a public relations perspective, the difference in numbers was not so stark. JPMC’s net income was $6.3 billion, compared with $5.6 billion for Wells.
Chase CFO Marianne Lake mentioned her bank was taking a “deep dive” into potential cross-selling issues as well. Most large banks are probably taking the same steps.
Chase mobile users reached 26 million, an increase of 4.8% for the quarter and 17.1% for the year. Wells hit 18.8 million mobile users, up 4.4% over last quarter and 17.5% over last year. In other words, though Chase has been pulling away from its rival in the mobile space, this quarter saw remarkably similar growth. This is illustrated in the graph below.
Last quarter, mobile user growth at Chase grew 4.2%, while Wells grew just 1.7%.
But the San Francisco-based lender is still an outlier when it comes to branches. (It no longer calls them “stores.”) Its network of approximately 6,200 branches dwarfs that of Chase, its next-largest competitor, at 5,310. Perhaps the cultural changes that are presumably taking place at Wells Fargo will lead to a change in its strategy of physical locations as well.