Customers using mobile banking apps to make payments have risen by more than a half, a report has found, as we increasingly prefer to manage our cash “on the go”.Mobile banking apps are being used around 7,610 times a minute as part of a “revolution” in the way people are monitoring their money, according to the British Bankers’ Association (BBA).Its Way We Bank Now report, which charts changing customer habits, said there were 347 million payments made using mobile apps in 2015 – up 54% on the previous year.Apps allow people to manage their bank from wherever they are (NatWest/PA)In 2015, mobile apps were used 11 million times a day, up from seven million a day in 2014 – that’s around 7,610 times a minute.In the same year, more than 13.8 million apps were downloaded, increasing 2014′s total by a quarter.There has also been a 250% annual increase in contactless card use, with £1.1 billion spent in just March 2016. Banks issued 15 million cards with contactless technology in 2015 – a rise of more than a half on the year before.And you can even bank from your watch! (Nationwide/PA)By contrast, the number of payments made using internet banking was up by just 2% in 2015 compared with 2014, with 417 million payments.The fall in bank website popularity is also evident in a drop in internet banking logins last year – at 4.3 million a day in 2015 compared with 4.4 million in 2014 as more customers migrated to apps.The report also highlighted new data from marketing consultancy CACI which projects the number of visits to bank branches has almost halved from 476 million in 2011 to 278 million across 2016. This is expected to continue for the next five years, with 185 million visits projected for 2021.Figures show we are only visiting the bank half as often (PA)Anthony Browne, chief executive of the BBA, said the figures showed a “staggering increase” in people using mobile apps.He said: “You can set up standing orders while standing in the queue for the bus and check your balance while checking in at the airport.“The choice now on offer from banks, from state-of-the-art branches to cutting edge apps, has put customers firmly in the driving seat on the way we bank.”
