January 18, 2006

Last year, about 45 percent of Internet users in Britain aged 14 and over engaged in Internet banking, according to a new study done by the Oxford Internet Institute.

While this makes it less popular than activities like e-commerce, listening to music, playing games, finding information and even weather checking, it's still something done by almost one-half of Internet users.

Banking through mobile phones, on the other hand, is far less prevalent. Forrester Research surveyed 2,127 Internet users in the UK about their use of mobile phones as part of a study commissioned by mobile banking specialist Meridea.

Overall, Forrester finds that interest in mobile banking is not incredibly strong. Just 11% of respondents said they are very interested in this feature, along with 19% who are "quite interested."

In total, about one-half of respondents showed some level of interest in mobile banking, while the other half said they were "not interested" or "not interested at all."

Why the reluctance? Forrester found that some respondents were restricted by their phone's capabilities, while others would be more apt to use the service if it were free (to the extent that 25% would consider switching banks to get free mobile banking).

Security concerns were also a factor, even though 70% of the 20 to 55 year-olds surveyed felt secure enough on the Internet to use online banking.

Ease of use was also important to respondents, who might be concerned about dealing with their accounts using the typically small keypads of a handset.

Additionally, it may just be that mobile Internet use has to become more common and more familiar before people are ready to embrace mobile banking as they have online banking.

Source: eMarketer