Background
In the 1970s, the first home computer was introduced. Almost two decades later, the World Wide Web (www) made its debut, thus ushering in a revolution that enabled universal (public) access to the internet by the early 1990s. This, needless to say, had a cascading impact on multiple industries -banking included. Banks were still all about the brick-and-mortar model until the late 1990s. It wasn’t until the mid and late 1990s when these entities began seriously investing in internet banking technology. By the time web banking became popular concurrently with widespread broadband availability, the new revolution was knocking on the door in the form of mobile technology. Mobile phones hit the market in the 1980s, but banking on these devices was limited to mainly SMS or USSD-based transactions. It wasn’t until smartphones arrived in the late 2000s which led to the rise of mobile banking applications in the 2010s.
Upon closer examination of the timelines, it is clear that web and mobile (App) banking found their feet in the industry 10 to 15 years after their debut. Simply put, these mediums followed the normal route of uptake, where the key drivers were the necessity of infrastructure and availability at affordable costs it requires before gaining sufficient acceptance levels. In other words, technology becomes popular when it is available round the clock, affordable, convenient, reliable, safe, and easy to use.
Today digital banking technologies (Web and Mobile) are well entrenched in the space. With the aim of gathering consumer perspectives on the use of these digital methods, we conducted a Digital Banking (Retail) Consumer Survey in mid-2020 across continents.
The survey focused on web and mobile application-based banking. Respondents were asked for their views and perspectives on existing digital banking services. The survey included 327 participants from Latin America, APAC, Europe, and Africa. A majority of the respondents were from Latin America and APAC, covering Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and India. There was significant participation from other countries as well, including the UK, Norway, UAE, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa.
Digital Banking Consumer Survey 2020
Consumers from the age groups 20-35 years (47 per cent) and 36-50 (45 per cent) accounted for the majority of participants, as shown in Exhibit 1. About 8 per cent were above 51 years. This helped us capture the perspectives of customers using banking services right from the 1980s, assuming customers would start using financial services in their early 20s. The geography spread in the sample size balances out the possible regional biases, as the survey covers all types of income-level countries. About 79 per cent of the participants were from the working-class, either salaried or owning a business, while the rest of the 21 per cent were retired, homemakers, or students (over 20 years old).
The participants were further categorized based on their usage levels namely low-usage, mid-usage, and high-usage customers. Categorization basis usage indicates maturity among the participants with respect to digital banking service consumption via the web and mobile applications. Interestingly, 55 per cent were either in the mid-usage (47 per cent) or high-usage group (8 per cent), as shown in below.
