Good news: the majority of smartphone owners today use mobile banking, but they are still attached to their desktops and tablets.
There is a rapid rise of a new segment of banking customers, dubbed omni-digital, according to a study by PWC released today. Those consumers use mobile apps or laptops, but don’t use branches or call centers, and total at 46% of customers, up from 27% four years ago, according to the report.
From the study:
This represents a huge jump from the 27% share we saw in 2012. Smartphones are an essential part of the change, given that 81% of consumers now own a smartphone, and 60% of these smartphone users now report using mobile banking in some way, up from 36% in 2012. Until now, financial institutions have been focused on addressing the needs of “omnichannel” customers: those who visit branches, use online banking on a website, call the contact centers, and use apps on their smartphones, all interchangeably. Over the past few years, this group of omni-channel users has been significantly shrinking, and it is being replaced by the “omni-digital” customers.
But this does not mean that the bank branch is dead: 62% of survey respondents said “they felt it was important for their bank to have local branches. However, in the future, ‘branches’ could refer to anything from a sophisticated ATM to a small office providing virtual capabilities,” according to the report.
More information is available here.