Customers are now using mobile banking apps four billion times a year, according to the latest ‘Way We Bank Now’ report from the British Bankers’ Association (BBA).

The study, which investigated changing consumer habits and major technological advances in banking, showed a dramatic increase in the number of account holders using digital banking and new technologies to manage their money.
Payments made using mobile apps in 2015 reached 347 million, up 54 per cent or 122 million from the year before. Payments made using internet banking totalled 417 million last year, up 2 per cent on 2014.

More than 13.8 million mobile banking apps were downloaded in 2015, a 25 per cent rise from 2014. Mobile banking apps were used 11 million times a day – more than 7,610 times a minute – in 2015. But internet banking logins fell slightly last year to 4.3 million a day, compared with 4.4 million in the previous 12 months.

The annual use of contactless cards also rose by 250 per cent, with £1.1 billion spent in March 2016 alone. Banks issued 15 million cards with contactless technology in 2015, up 54 per cent on the year before.

The BBA’s CEO, Anthony Browne, observed: “Our influential ‘Way We Bank Now’ report shows a staggering increase in people using mobile apps, proving it’s now easier than ever to interact with your bank. We are in the midst of a consumer-led revolution in the way we do our day-to-day banking.

“Customers love the new technology that is allowing us to bank round the clock. You can set up standing orders while standing in the queue for the bus and check your balance while checking in at the airport. The choice now on offer from banks, from state-of-the-art branches to cutting-edge apps, has put customers firmly in the driving seat on the way we bank.”

The BBA report also highlighted new CACI data, which projected that the number of visits to bank branches will fall to 278 million in 2016, down from 476 million in 2011. This trend is expected to continue over the next five years, with 185 million visits predicted in 2021.

The CACI figures also suggested that average visits per branch a day have fallen from 104 in 2011, to 71 in 2016 and 51 in 2021. The average visits to a branch per customer per year has also declined from 13.7 in 2011 to 8.1 in 2016, and is forecast to drop to 5.3 in 2021.

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