Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Since 2011, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors has conducted an annual survey on ‘Consumers Use of Mobile Financial Services’. As with the earlier surveys, the 2015 survey was conducted on behalf of the Board by GfK, an online consumer research firm. In late 2015 over 2,500 respondents completed the survey with approximately a third of the survey respondents having been interviewed in 2014. Each year contains a portion of respondents who were also interviewed in the previous year allowing for the survey to track some respondents longitudinally.

The report tracks how consumers access their bank’s services using mobile phones (“mobile banking”), their payment for goods and services using mobile phones (“mobile payments”), and their use of mobile phones to inform their shopping decisions. This poster will present the findings from the 2016 report, fielded in November 2015. Where applicable, the findings from the current survey are also compared with the findings from the 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 surveys.

While the use of mobile banking has risen over the years this survey indicates that, for those who have adopted mobile banking, use of a mobile phone appears to complement their use of other banking channels. Additional findings include that the use of mobile payments continues to be less common than use of mobile banking. Further, a majority of consumers who use mobile banking and mobile payments cite convenience or getting a smartphone as their main reason for adoption. The main impediments to the adoption of mobile financial services continue to be a stated preference for other methods of banking and making payments, as well as concerns about security.