Chase, Citigroup Display Strong Mobile User Growth as Wells Fargo Growth Dips
EXCLUSIVE— While mobile banking usage appears to be steadily increasing, some banks are getting better at it than others.
Bank of America, which reported its fourth quarter earnings for 2017 today, stated that the bank now has 24.2 million mobile active banking users, up 2% from 23.6 million last quarter and up a respectable 12% from 4Q16.
JPMorgan Chase, which also reported fourth quarter earnings this week, grew even faster, with users up nearly 3% from last quarter, with 30.1 million MAUs. That figure represents a 13% increase from this quarter last year.
Even Citigroup, which does not report its MAU numbers, had strong mobile growth this quarter, with bank CFO John Gerspach stating on the company’s earnings call yesterday:
We continue to drive transaction volumes to lower cost channels and digital engagement remains strong with a 13% increase in total active digital users, including 21% growth among mobile users versus last year.
Other banks, however, have started to see mobile growth slow: Wells Fargo, the third and last financial institution where Bank Innovation tracks MAU data, reported 21.2 million MAUs for its fourth quarter during its earnings call this week.
That figure represents a 1% increase from the 20.9 million MAUs Wells reported last quarter—not so far from BOFA and Chase’s quarterly growth—but only an 8% growth year-over-year.
Both Chase and BofA began pulling away from Wells in terms of MAU growth last quarter, and it seems as though that growth continued to plateau as the banks moved through the final quarter for 2017.
Chase and BofA will continue to augment their mobile banking growth through partnerships with services such as Zelle (which has been particularly important for BofA, where P2P has become a key payment segment) as well as through the launch of services like Chase’s Finn, a standalone mobile banking app geared towards millennials.
To learn more about mobile banking and usage, join us on March 5-6, 2018 at Bank Innovation 2018 at Parc 55 in San Francisco. Click here to request an invitation.
