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More than 56 percent of the U.S. respondents to an Amdocs survey said they have yet to use mobile financial services.
However, the survey of 8,500 consumers worldwide also indicated that new innovative solutions for financial services, ranging from taking out loans and receiving wages to paying for educational services and medical treatment, will drive the next phase of mobile financial services growth in the US.
Conducted by analyst and consultancy firm Ovum on behalf of Amdocs, the survey focused on both users and non-users of mobile financial services in the U.S and included unbanked respondents–people with no access to traditional banking services.
While 40 percent of the unbanked U.S. respondents are aware of mobile financial services but don’t plan to use them, 35 percent of the unbanked respondents are not aware of them at all, and 9 percent have downloaded the application but have not used it yet.
“One finding that surprised us was that there wasn’t that wide a discrepancy between the emerging markets and the mature markets like U.S. on many of the parameters – especially on the key inhibitors for growth, like security, and use of personal data, and the key drivers for future usage, such as ubiquity, ease of use, and increased security, Sharath Dorbala vice president and head of products, sales and marketing for mobile financial services at Amdocs,” told eWEEK.
Dorbala noted despite that, a large number of people are ready to adopt more advanced products and services, such as solutions for loans, insurance, savings, and payment solutions for education and medical treatment.
The top three factors that will increase overall adoption and usage of mobile financial services are rewards, greater data security, and service ubiquity, the survey found. Other factors that respondents said would encourage adoption and usage are low transaction charges and ease of use.
“As the ecosystem matures and the awareness increases, mobile financial services would soon become one of the primary modes of all consumer financial transactions—from availing basic and advanced banking services and products to online and offline payments, to all personal financial management,” Dorbala said. “In fact, the concept of branchless banking would be fueled by mobile financial services—and we will see more banks opening their virtual branches on mobile wallets and device rather than investing in a physical set up.”