Customers in the UK have shown a great affinity for talking to their bank online and via mobile banking than ever before.
According to research from UK Finance and EY, customers logged into mobile banking apps 5.5 billion times in 2017. This was a 13% increase on 2016 and there was an average of 275 log-ins per customers. Britons increasingly turned to their smartphones, with 22 million using a banking app in 2017, up from 19.6 million in the previous year.
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Customers were starting to use mobile banking for something other than checking their balance as well. 51% paid bills using mobile banking, 62% utilised it to transfer money between friends and 27% used apps to set up standing orders.
Approximately 512 million text alerts were also sent to customers in 2017.
In addition, webchats increased their popularity. Over 5.5 million webchats took place between customers and their banks in 2017 at an average of 622 an hour.
Moreover, 71% of adults in the UK used online banking, some 38 million adults.
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By GlobalDataAs a consequence, the report The Way We Bank Now reported that bank branch visits had sharply dropped 26% between 2012 and 2017.
Stephen Jones, chief executive of UK Finance, said: “Technology is changing the way we communicate, work and shop and, as a result, the way we choose to manage our money. The industry has responded to this seismic social change, which is very much led by customers looking to make the most of digital innovation for convenience. The assumption that British consumers shy away from talking about money looks to be consigned to the last century, as webchats and video banking prove increasingly popular. And with over 22 million British customers having downloaded banking apps, this trend is not going away.”
Dan Cooper, UK banking & capital markets leader at EY, said: “Digital innovation is transforming how we engage with our banks – we’re now able to make payments and communicate with our bank at times which suit us through increasingly sophisticated apps and webchat services. Given how busy people’s lives are nowadays, this is proving to be a real game changer. What’s great to see is that people of all ages are taking advantage of these latest innovations. Perhaps unsurprisingly, millennials are currently the biggest adopters, but the stereotype that tech only appeals to the younger generations is being proven to be just not true anymore, with almost half (49%) of 65 year olds now using online banking.”
