The use of mobile has revolutionized the way we do business of many companies. Among them, the financial world, which focused on the development of this technology years ago to improve its profitability by reducing little by little its heavy structure of offices and staff. And now we start to see its fruits, at least in the part of the use, as half of bank customers in Spain (47.1%) operates with your entity through the mobile phone at least once a week, according to a study by the Group Inmark.
For banks, the more positive is the rapid increase achieved in the last few years. The study was conducted in the mid of 2019 (between may and July), and compared with the previous year the rise was of more than 11 percentage points. In fact, in the past three years, has tripled the percentage of clients who consult regularly the main bank with which it operates.
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ING, BBVA and Sabadell, banks with a higher share of digital consumers, The half of the bank customers to go at least once a month to the office The banks will harden the requirements for access to consumer credits in 2020
“This growth will continue in the coming years. The entities are pushing digital innovation on their platforms. And the user financial, on the one hand, is forced to use it and, for another, also demands it. Clients are becoming more sophisticated with these tools,” explains Manuel Lopez, ceo of Grupo Inmark.
Despite the strength of the floods, the financial sector still has a pending task that seems to be decisive for the improvement of its profitability: the increase in the number of operations that generate added value through mobile banking. That is to say, that each time made more hires products. The last year had an average utilization of 6,69 times a month compared to 5,77 times in 2018. “There are more frequency of use by these customers, but most only query positions, expenses… There is more of relationship with the bank, but not more hiring. The entities have yet to standardize most products,” says Carlos Trevijano, partner of strategy for the financial sector of KPMG Spain.
Frequency of use
mobile banking in 2019
In %
All or almost all days
Two or three times a week
once A week
Every 15 days
once A month
A quarter
once in the last year
10,2
29,8
30,9
16,6
9,9
1,9
0,7
Users of mobile banking in 2019
% of total
of customers
bank
In % of customers
working with
each entity
ING
BBVA
Sabadell
CaixaBank
Santander
the Market
Bankia
7,0
80,2
53,4
19,4
51,5
8,8
49,4
30,3
48,4
18,2
47,1
45,4
13,9
Source: Inmark
THE COUNTRY
Frequency of use
mobile banking in 2019
In %
All or almost all days
Two or three times a week
once A week
Every 15 days
once A month
A quarter
once in the last year
10,2
29,8
30,9
16,6
9,9
1,9
0,7
Users of mobile banking in 2019
% of total
of customers
bank
In % of customers
working with
each entity
ING
BBVA
Sabadell
CaixaBank
Santander
the Market
Bankia
7,0
80,2
53,4
19,4
51,5
8,8
49,4
30,3
48,4
18,2
47,1
45,4
13,9
Source: Inmark
Source: Inmark
THE COUNTRY
THE COUNTRY
Frequency of use
mobile banking in 2019
Users of mobile banking in 2019
In %
% of total
of customers
bank
In % of customers
working with
each entity
All or almost all days
Two or three times a week
once A week
Every 15 days
once A month
once A quarter
once in the last year
10,2
ING
BBVA
Sabadell
CaixaBank
Santander
the Market
Bankia
7,0
80,2
29,8
53,4
19,4
30,9
51,5
8,8
16,6
49,4
30,3
9,9
48,4
18,2
1,9
47,1
0,7
45,4
13,9
Source: Inmark
THE COUNTRY
Until now, the operations performed are primarily transfers (almost nine out of every ten banking customers mobile the make), and payments of services and taxes (half of the customers). If you are looking for the data of the contracting of financial products, more sophisticated and with greater profitability, you must go to the lower area of the movements performed: only 3.2% of the customers of digital banking mobile respondents claim to have made these hires. The study was conducted with a sample of 11.014 personal interviews in Spain —has a margin of error of 0,95%— and is recognized and used by banks for their internal marketing research.
CaixaBank, the leader in number of users
The distribution of the customers financial that used this technology in the Spanish market stood at CaixaBank as the entity with the greatest number of users: nearly one-third of the total (30.3 per cent) are working with the Catalan entity via the mobile. It is followed by the BBVA (19,4%) and Banco Santander (18.2 per cent). In spite of this, to measure the success of each entity is important not only the total share of the market, also what is the percentage of the own customers who use regularly these tools. And hence the bank that the rampage is to ING, since it gets that eight out of every ten of your customers use mobile to interact with him. The following entities, with best figures are BBVA (53.4% of its users) and Banco Sabadell (51,5%).
This underlines the importance of the customer profile and how the demand for these is also driving the development of the institutions themselves, though without leaving of side in the majority of cases the physical part, the branch office, vital to maintain and increase the confidence of the client. “What is important is that the banks are a mix right between the digital network and the physical, as they are complementary and do not replace one another completely. It will reach a point of balance that allows them to reduce their structures. It is evident that the scanning threat to the branches, mostly small, that are no longer sustainable”, argues an expert in banking PKF Attest.
So, as explained by different experts, the profitability of mobile banking should not be measured exclusively through the benefits directly generated by it. It is also important to the savings to be able to reduce a structure which is very rigid and expensive that they still hold. “It is very difficult to know up to what point it is to benefit the investment in the mobile business, as it is redirected by this pathway queries that are not profitable [for example, knowing the balance] to reduce the use of the office, which has a very high cost. What is clear is that it improves the user experience and the greatest return is not to lose customers, and even be able to win thanks to a good mobile environment”, adds Trevijano.
