Mobile and Technology

The results of BuzzCity’s fifth global survey investigating consumer mobile behaviour has indicated that user education is clearly inadequate as many are not aware of the m-banking services on offer.

Published: 15 Mar 2010

The results of BuzzCity’s fifth global survey investigating consumer mobile behaviour has indicated that user education is clearly inadequate as many are not aware of the m-banking services on offer.

BuzzCity, a mobile media company, questioned 1,798 mobile users across the Americas, Asia, Africa, Western Europe and the Middle East on their use of the mobile as both a banking and payments device and found that 90 percent had used their mobile to directly purchase products or services.

Mobile money

This study examines the two key themes when it comes to ‘mobile money’.

Firstly – the use of the mobile platform for banking services. 47 percent of respondents did not know whether their banks offered banking services and an additional 15 percent were aware of the offer but had not taken it up.

This would indicate that banks still have some way to go in educating consumers about the availability and benefits of mobile banking services.

The second area to explore was the use of the mobile platform for transactions. The survey shows that although most of these purchases (68 percent) are related to mobile phone use, such as mobile content and prepaid airtime, users also buy other mainstream products with their mobiles. In fact, 23 percent have bought from online stores, paid a bill, bought prepaid utilities and made bookings – all through their mobile.

In addition to mobile content, a large range of consumer goods are in demand among mobile users which they are prepared to purchase using their mobiles. Books, music and movies are the most sought after (45 percent) followed by travel bookings (22 percent) and small appliances (11 percent).

Opportunity

BuzzCity CEO KF Lai said, “There are clear opportunities for mobile transactions to grow as users, in this and previous surveys, indicate that they want to be able to use their mobiles to buy more goods such as books, music, travel services, household utilities and electronic appliances.”

“Although there have been some developments in transforming the mobile into a banking and payment device, with 29% of the global mobile population still without access to a bank account and 56% without a credit or debit card, banking and mobile transaction providers are overlooking a much wider audience. The potential opportunities are huge but the diverse challenges faced by the global mobile audience must not be overlooked – mobile consumers have money to spend but they must be provided with the opportunity to do so.”

This survey has identified three areas where progress is needed:

• User education about mobile banking services to increase uptake,
• Increased partnerships between banks, carriers and merchants to increase the number of products available for purchase,
• The development of new services to enable mobile transactions for those without access to traditional banking facilities.

The survey was conducted from October to December 2009 in 12 countries.