Skip to main content

Mobile Banking Users in Europe to Reach 214M by 2018

Clearly, 2014 will be a difficult time for some legacy PC manufacturers, such as HP, where sales of personal computers -- its largest area of business -- have been hurt in recent years by competition from media tablets and smartphones.

Meanwhile, more European consumers will bank on their media tablets than on their mobile phones by as soon as 2016, according to the latest global market study by Forrester Research.

While mobile phone banking use in Europe will grow fast -- from 42 million users in 2013 to 99 million in 2018 -- media tablet banking will grow twice as fast -- from 19 million users in 2013 to 115 million in 2018. Combined, that's more than 214 million mobile banking users.

Growing tablet ownership, the increased availability of tablet banking apps, and fewer security fears among tablet users versus mobile phone users are among the key drivers behind the explosive tablet banking growth.

"As customers start using their tablets and smartphones to do their banking, some will stop using their desktop and laptop PCs," said Stephen Walker, analyst at Forrester Research. "We expect the number of Western European online banking users on PCs and tablets to grow slowly in the next five years and reach 163 million by 2018, masking a big underlying shift from PCs to tablets to access bank websites."

The new Forrester forecast covers digital banking adoption across seven European countries -- including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK.

Other findings from the market study include:

  • France is the only country in the forecast where tablet banking will not overtake mobile phone banking by 2016, as it combines lower tablet adoption than the other EU countries (apart from Italy) with the highest mobile banking adoption after the Netherlands and Sweden.
  • Forrester expects the proportion of European tablet owners who bank on tablets to almost double from 35 percent in 2013 to 68 percent by 2018. In 2018, Sweden will have the highest tablet banking adoption at 89 percent, while Italy will have the lowest at 54 percent.
  • Leading European banks, such as France's BNP Paribas and Société Générale, Germany’s Postbank and Sparkassen, and Sweden's Swedbank, have already had tablet-optimized apps for two or three years. Many other banks will follow over the next 24 months, encouraging more customers to use their tablets for banking.
  • Consumers are unlikely to ever trust mobile phones as much as PCs and tablets, given that the latter two are largely at-home devices that are rarely lost and therefore intrinsically feel more secure to consumers. Tablet users today are less likely than other online users to not use online banking because of security concerns.

Popular posts from this blog

The AI Application Integration Challenge

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly become the defining force in business technology development, but integrating AI into applications remains a formidable challenge. According to a recent Gartner survey, 77 percent of engineering leaders identify AI integration in apps as a major hurdle for their organizations. As demand for AI-powered solutions accelerates across every industry, understanding the tools, the barriers, and the opportunities is essential for business and technology leaders seeking to evolve. The Gartner survey highlights a key trend: while AI’s potential is widely recognized, the path to useful integration is anything but straightforward. IT leaders cite complexities in embedding AI models into existing software, managing data pipelines, ensuring security, and maintaining compliance as persistent obstacles. These challenges are compounded by a shortage of skilled AI engineers and the rapid evolution of AI technologies, which can outpace organizational readiness and...