KeyBank is turning to tablets.

Matt Lehman, senior vice president and head of online and mobile at KeyBank, said that mobile has moved from a secondary or tertiary strategy to the primary focus for the bank — and tablets have displaced smartphones in the mobile channel itself.

In a discussion with Bank Systems & Technology, Lehman called the smartphone a personal device that allowed a customer and bank to interact much more frequently. The tablet, however, offers an experience that is quite distinct from the smartphone. That’s why Key is concentrating on tablets.

Describing the tablet as “an amalgamation of the desktop and the phone,” Lehman views the tablet as suitable for more complex tasks, such as mortgage applications and personal financial management tools, which are less than optimal on a smartphone. While the smartphone-version of KeyBank’s mobile app offers a limited experience of the online site, the tablet can display the entire site.

Note that Lehman is still describing mobile as an adjunct to online banking, displaying a version of the “full” online site. Going forward, it is likely bankers will stop describing the online version of the website as the full or optimal experience, and rather think of mobile first. The touchscreen of the tablet, in other words, likely demands different design considerations than a screen navigated with a pointer from a mouse.

Q2, a mobile banking software provider, described the tablet as the “optimal channel going forward” — that was back in the fall of 2012. It seems KeyBank has gotten the message.

KeyBank is based in Cleveland and has $90.7 billion in assets.