Mobile phone banking apps popular with Thais, survey finds

The company polled 1,000 mobile-phone users early this year and found that 69 per cent of respondents were currently using a banking app to carry out a variety of financial transactions.
In addition, the study found that the rate of usage was high, with almost half (45 per cent) of respondents using their mobile banking app at least once a week and another 36 per cent using it at least once a month.
The two main purposes for using the apps were transactions and information-based features, with fund-transfer and checking account balances most frequently mentioned in this respect.
Grant Bertoli, chief executive of market research firm Marketbuzzz, said the popularity of these apps was all about convenience. They can be used at any time and anywhere, while the benefits of security and personal control were also recognised. 
He said Thais were experiencing a new era where using their mobile phone to access finances along with other dimensions such as mobile payments would reshape the entire financial system based on consumers’ demand for convenient, faster and more efficient ways to pay their bills and manage their finances. 
Khalid Khan, managing partner and co-founder of Innov8asia, another market research service, said that while the higher usage was clear, most retail banks had fallen into the trap of treating customers as a relatively undifferentiated group of users and, by extension, were delivering a “one size fits all” offer. 
Retail banks must also consider which consumers they want their mobile offerings to appeal to in order to optimise customer retention and acquisition, and improve service adoption, Khan said. 
The study also found that the largest barrier to further adoption was the worry about security, with 44 per cent being concerned about the possibility of people hacking their accounts.