Mobile banking to 'overtake online services' by 2019

The popularity of mobile banking apps is set to overtake usage of online banking services by 2019, according to a report by CACI.

The financial data analyst said that 22 million people managed their current account through a mobile phone last year and also predicted 35 million people - 72% of the adult population in the UK - will bank via a phone app by 2023.

Rural areas and coastal towns were predicted to see the biggest increase in mobile users between now and 2023, according to the report, with slow broadband and a lack of internet access pushing users away from online and towards mobile apps.

"With so much more functionality, mobile is rapidly becoming the digital channel of choice, and replacing traditional banking for many customers,' said CACI's Jamie Morawiec, who authored the report.

"Whilst the number of internet logins is decreasing, so are the numbers of users. In fact, CACI predicts that 2019 will be the year in which mobile banking overtakes internet banking in term of a user."

With the predicted shift away from traditional banking, banks must ensure their legacy infrastructure can support mobile and internet banking services, and take the necessary steps to migrate services with as little disruption as possible.

TSB came under fire last month over a botched IT upgrade that saw users of its personal banking app and online services unable to log in, or access certain parts of the service.

Some users reported having access to other people's accounts and some businesses left unable to pay staff.

The bank repeatedly informed customers it had fixed the bugs and solved the issues only to have more problems flagged up and are still receiving reports that users are unable to login to its services.

Picture: Shutterstock

Bobby Hellard

Bobby Hellard is ITPro's Reviews Editor and has worked on CloudPro and ChannelPro since 2018. In his time at ITPro, Bobby has covered stories for all the major technology companies, such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, and regularly attends industry-leading events such as AWS Re:Invent and Google Cloud Next.

Bobby mainly covers hardware reviews, but you will also recognize him as the face of many of our video reviews of laptops and smartphones.