The U.S. is trailing other markets when it comes to finance app downloads, according to a new study from the mobile marketing platform Adjust and the mobile analytics platform Apptopia.

“COVID-19 is accelerating the transformation, opening up access and opportunity to millions of un- and underbanked consumers around the world,” said Paul H. Muller, co-founder and CTO of Adjust, in the company’s Mobile Finance Report 2020.

The report measured install growth across different app types from the first half of 2019 compared to the first half of 2020. According to the report, U.S. download growth trailed other markets in payments, banking and investment apps.

U.S. installs of top payment apps grew about 20% from the first half of 2019 to the first half of 2020, according to the report. In Japan, however, installs grew about 75%, and Brazil saw install growth of just over 50%. The Japanese government has spent the past year trying to move its consumers away from cash, offering a rebate of up to 5% to consumers who use cashless payments. Although the program ended in June, Japan is “moving toward the international norm of mobile finance uptake for advanced economies — meaning there is plenty of scope for the right app in the right niche,” the report stated.

For banking apps, the U.S. saw about 2% fewer installs during H1 2020 compared to H1 2019. Japan, meanwhile, saw growth of about 22%, while Ukraine, Turkey and Brazil all saw growth of more than 10%. The U.K., Germany and Russia all saw negative growth like the U.S. The report called Japan an outlier for advanced economies, adding that the decline in banking app downloads for other countries could be due to market saturation or the fact that consumers are less likely to switch banks during a pandemic.

Apptopia provided global install data for the report. The company counts the likes of Visa, Facebook and Google as clients.

See also: Payment apps are struggling to retain users, data shows

Investment apps saw tremendous growth around the world, according to the report. Installs in the U.S. increased about 70% from H1 2019 to H1 2020, while in Germany installs increased almost 140% during that same period.

“Reports of a boom in investment app activity are supported by Adjust data, which registered an 88.14% growth in average sessions per day from January to June,” the report read. “In fact, investment apps are the second-fastest-growing vertical tracked by Adjust in 2020, beating out other hot verticals, such as casual and hyper-casual games.”

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