Smart phone behind a quiet revolution in banking practice

The growing number of Britons who manage their bank accounts by mobile phone check their accounts three times as often as an earlier generation of internet bankers.

More than three million people in the United Kingdom now manage and monitor their money on their mobiles, checking their accounts about 18-20 times a month, or once every two days on average.

Current UK Government statistics suggest that online banking is still far more prevalent than mobile phone access.

In 2009, of the 37 million UK adults who reported using the internet in the last three months, more than 50 per cent - over 20 million - had accessed internet banking.

But on average they checked their accounts only six times a month, according to the new research compiled by Monitise PLC, which works with VISA, Lloyds, RBS and other partners to supply mobile banking and payments services world-wide. People accessing their accounts via telephone banking did so less than once a month.

Call centre users typically check their accounts about eight times a year, those using online access about 72 times a year, and smartphone bankers 216 times a year.

Monitise compiled the figures from the latest available statistics from the British Bankers' Association, the leading UK and financial services trade body, as well as its own database of smartphone requests.

The company's chief executive, Alastair Luckies, said: "There's a revolution taking place as people get turned on to mobile banking - valuing the 'anytime, anywhere' control it gives them over their money, as banks increase the range of services available."

Monitise, specialising in mobile financial technology, han-dles more than 100 million inquiries and transactions a year from over 2,700 types of handset world-wide.

Barry Clark of the think tank The Future Foundation, which has researched mobile banking trends, said: "As people appreciate that banking by mobile phone is simple, swift, secure and accessible anywhere, they are choosing to use their mobile more often to manage their finances and engage with their bank."

About 80 per cent of banks now offer a mobile banking technology, and security concerns, long seen as a barrier to widespread phone access, are shrinking, research suggests.

Earlier this month a YouGov survey for the Intelligent Environments Group, a software provider for the financial services industry, suggested just 15 per cent of people now prefer to check their balance at an ATM machine and only five per cent in the branch.