Mobile Banking Picking Up Steam in 2013

2013 may be the year in which we see the steady decline of the ATM to the point where people will soon look at them the same way the younger generation looks at phone booths. There are so many ways to handle banking on the move these days; it’s becoming less and less convenient to have to make a stop at your neighborhood ATM. Mobile applications and online retailers have made mobile commerce the new “it” technology and that technology should only gain popularity as we head into 2013.

One of St. George Bank’s top technology experts believes that mobile banking applications will actually overtake ATMs in terms of use if the trend continues at its current pace. Travis Tyler, giving a presentation unveiling his own company’s mobile payment applications, said that he believes that mobile will become the most common way customers deal with banks. 

Companies like eBay and other online retailers have already found a way around making customers deal directly with their banks, thanks to services like Paypal and the like. That should only continue going forward.


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“In the next 12 months we see mobile as being the biggest interaction point with our customers, probably outside of ATMs. But I also think there is a chance, once we do payments, that it will exceed ATMs as well,” Mr. Tyler said.

Tyler also said that he saw no indication that customers of his bank would suddenly lose interest in having the ability to use mobile banking. While his company only offers mobile applications on iOS currently, Tyler said they were working on getting a mobile banking application out on the Android (News - Alert) platform as well. 

Tyler highlighted the recent example where his bank offered users the ability to activate credit and debit cards via a user’s mobile device. Tyler says that his company didn’t do any extra communication attempts to get the news out, but within a few months, 40 percent of activations were through the mobile app.

There are, of course, banks that are still hesitating to adopt this technology simply because it is relatively new. Asian banks, in particular, are moving slower than their Western counterparts. The fact of the matter is that if they don’t begin picking up the mobile movement soon, they could be left in the dust.