Despite growing interest among consumers in accessing the Internet through their mobile phone, most people still prefer to use a PC when it comes to banking, according to a survey commissioned by IBM.
A poll of 600 people in the US, UK and China by NetReflector found that over 50% would substitute their Internet usage on a PC for a mobile device.
Mike T.
I am a big believer in bringing banking to mobile devices, but I’m not sure I could use it as my sole method for managing finances. Even using Twitter on a mobile device is somewhat inhibited by the platform and its available real-estate. I think banking is the same way. Sometimes it just makes more sense to have an entire 22” wide monitor available to view transactions and flick back and forth through pages.
I feel like the headline is misleading. It’s not that mobile users don’t want to do banking (or some simplified version like checking balances, transferring funds), but that they shy away from using mobile banking as their main method of choice.
Kelly R.
I think mobile devices are still relatively unreliable for anyone to be comfortable enough for banking.
I’ve accessed my online bank via the browser on my 3G phone and it’s nerve racking if you’re trying to transfer money or pay a bill and the network slows down or loses service (because that would spawn a panic call to the bank “Did it go through”).
I’ve only done it once or twice when in a bind, but as much as I would love to always do my banking on the go I’m not sure I would trust it just yet.
Mike T.
So does it come down to security versus functionality?
It says above that, “over 50% would substitute their Internet usage on a PC for a mobile device,” which to me is a significant number. It sounds like they are ready to do banking on a mobile device, but what is holding back the rest of the crowd is unclear. It may be they don’t trust banking on a mobile or they feel it is too complicated a task to complete on such a device.
Any additional thoughts from a functional standpoint, Kelly?
Kelly R.
Yea functionality probably plays a part too. One example is my savings account online goes through a three-step login process for security reasons, which is great…but would be a huge pain if it were on a mobile device. Which I guess goes back to security.
I would actually really love to do banking on my phone and would probably mostly use my phone if it were reliable and I trusted it.