The popularity of mobile banking in Canada continues to rise: Report
Recently released was the comScore Canadian Online Banking Insights report.
An analysis of the Canadian online banking sector in Q1 2011 by comScore showed that there were 13.3 million online banking customers across the top Canadian financial institutions who manage checking or savings accounts online. Included in the competitive set for this analysis were the BMO Financial Group, National Bank of Canada (BNC), Canadian International Bank of Commerce (CIBC), Desjardins Group, HSBC, ING Group, President’s Choice Financial, Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Scotiabank and TD Bank.
Three out of five online banking consumers use their bank’s online bill pay platform. Although the number of online banking consumers in Canada is a fraction of the total in the U.S., bill payment users account for a similar percentage of total online banking customers, indicating a healthy demand for online payment services in Canada.
An analysis of mobile banking in Canada, using March 2011 data from comScore’s recently debuted MobiLens Canada service, reveals 12.3 percent of Canadian mobile subscribers accessed banking, credit card, insurance or brokerage account information using their mobile phones over the course of the month. Importantly, 90.2 percent of those who used these mobile financial services specifically reported accessing banking information. Among these mobile banking customers, 77.5 percent used smartphones, with Apple accounting for more than half of all smartphone platforms used, followed by RIM as the second-most popular platform.
TD Bank and RBC had the highest penetration among mobile bankers, reaching 26.7 percent and 25.7 percent of this group, respectively, followed by CIBC (17.0 percent reach), Scotiabank (13.2 percent reach) and ING (9.8 percent reach).
