Approximately one-third of Barclays digital bankers solely access their finances through the company’s mobile application, indicating that there is likely a significant group of mobile-only bankers.

Barclays recently reported how mobile is playing a role in the company’s overall digital initiatives. The financial giant’s mobile app plays a particularly strong role in a broader mobile strategy with 2 million downloads to date.

“More and more people are using mobile as their main, or only, digital connection to their bank,” said Drew Sievers and CEO of mFoundry at FIS, Larkspur, CA.

“The persistence and immediacy of the medium makes mobile the convenient way for people to securely transact with their financial institution,” he said. “As time progresses and younger customers continue to come online, the percentage of mobile-only bankers will definitely increase.”

Mr. Sievers is not affiliated with Barclays. He commented based on his expertise on the subject.

Barclays was not able to meet the press deadline to comment for this story.

Banking on mobile
Barclays cites a whopping 200 percent increase in app registrations in 2013 versus 2012.

When it comes to how Barclays’ mobile bankers break down by gender, 54 percent are men.

Despite the stereotype that mobile banking is only for young, tech-savvy consumers, Barclays’ oldest mobile banker is 106 years old.

Additionally, 35 percent of business clients have downloaded the Barclays mobile app.

Barclays claims that 15 billion pounds — or the equivalent to roughly $24.6 billion — in payments have been made via the app in the past two years.

An average of 595 British pounds — or $978 — is transferred weekly via the app.

The financial institution reports that 225 daily payments are made via the app to pay off Barclay Cards. More than 4,000 payment transfers are conducted through the app.

Moving to mobile-only

Data from nVision Future Foundation in 2013 predicts that 40 percent of consumers will use their mobile devices for banking by 2020 compared to the 4 percent of consumers in 2008 who did so.

As more financial institutions embrace mobile to lower costs and streamline the banking process, consumers are ironically becoming more engaged with their banks through smartphones and tablets than they are at actual branches or through desktops.

In fact, nearly 50 percent of Barclays’ mobile bankers use the company’s app on a daily basis. These users are also logging in to their accounts roughly twice as often as desktop users.

Barclays has been especially active in mobile with its person-to-person payment app Pingit since 2012.

The app lets any consumer with a bank account and a mobile phone number send money to friends and family (see story).

Most recently, the app was integrated with Corethree to bring mobile payments to transportation in Britain (see story).

As mobile increasingly becomes more sophisticated, these types of marketing integrations will be key in helping financial institutions scale mobile efforts.

“Banks are looking to mobile to help them with their bottom and top-line growth, with the latter being a key focus for 2014,” Mr. Sievers said.

“As a result, we’ll be seeing many banks deploying features that will drive card usage through mobile marketing technologies,” he said.

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Commerce Daily, New York