816 million mobile bankers by 2010

Mobile banking is set to skyrocket, according to mobile analysts Juniper Research, with 816 million of us using mobile banking services by 2011, a tenfold increase on the 2007 figure. The analysts reckon that the annual number of global mobile banking transactions will rise from 2.7 billion in 2007 to 37 billion by 2011, while the average value of mobile transactions will double.

China/Far East region will have the greatest number of users of mobile banking services, followed by Western Europe and the Indian sub-continent, says Juniper, with all the newfound enthusiasm for mobile banking stoked by better consumer confidence.

Mobile banking seems to have been on the cusp of mass take-up for a number of years in the UK but never really quite tipped over into becoming one of those every day applications. Banks themselves don’t seem to be pushing it that hard – after all, if they can’t make money off it, and it’s an additional channel to promote, support and secure, what’s in it for them? Developing economies seem to be doing much more interesting things with mobile banking than developed ones – perhaps UK banks need to look overseas for inspiration.