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July 17, 2013

Shoppers willing to buy by mobile when trusted bank involved

Ease of use and loyalty offers are among leading triggers to drive m-commerce via banks.

By Duncan Macrae

European smartphone shoppers are even more confident engaging in mobile commerce if they could do so using services provided by their bank, research published by the Future Foundation has revealed.

The research, commissioned by Mobile Money experts Monitise, reveals six-in-10 UK smartphone users (57%) would feel more confident buying goods and services by mobile if they could use apps provided by their bank. This confidence is even stronger among Spanish consumers at 68% while 50% of smartphone owners in Germany feel the same way.

The Future Foundation report, ‘M-commerce: What consumers want from financial institutions’, found that more than 50% of UK respondents are already buying goods on their smartphones.

According to the research, leading factors likely to prompt UK consumers to buy products and services via a bank app include ease-of-use at 60%, incentives such as loyalty schemes at 49%, direct insights from their bank on the state of their finances and budgets at 46% and convenience at 37%. More than half of those surveyed would trust sites endorsed by a bank, varying from 51% in Germany and 57% in the UK to 68% in Spain.

Also among the findings, smartphone shoppers say they are more open to buying higher value items if it can be done through a bank app. Tickets for travel such as flights and trains were the most popular items cited, at 65%, 47% and 45% among Spanish, German and UK consumers respectively. Tickets for services such as entertainment and sporting events were the second most popular items.

The study also found:

  • The experiences most liked by UK consumers when using smartphones to buy are: ease-of-use (69%), speed (51%), using a known and trusted brand (43%), search (30%) and access to discounts (19%).
  • Leading factors that would encourage UK consumers to buy via their smartphone in order of preference are confidence in the security of the transaction and security of the phone at 50% and 51% respectively, engaging with trusted brands at 30%, access to offers and promotions at 27% and the increased convenience relative to personal computers at 26%.
  • On a scale of one to five, checking bank balances was ranked as the single most important additional service for consumers to connect to prior to making a purchase and more important than being able to access price comparison sites or peer reviews.
  • Some 48% of UK consumers who own smartphones want to research, plan and organise their finances using their mobiles, compared with 53% in Spain and 54% in Germany.

Barry Clark, the author of the Future Foundation report, said: "We’re clearly seeing how today’s mobile generation is more comfortable than ever in managing their money and making purchases on the move. Financial institutions have an important role to play in this.

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Commenting on the research findings, Monitise Group CEO Alastair Lukies, said: "Consumers place a high degree of trust in their bank’s brand and like all payments ecosystems it is this collaboration to create and share in a bigger prize that will be most successful. The winning solutions will be built on these partnerships within digital payments and we are very encouraged to see banks, mobile operators and retailers beginning to work together for the consumer."

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