Mobile banking: mobile payments 'to grow 42% per year'

By Matthew Plant

Every year until 2016, we can expect mobile payments to grow by an average of 42%. By then, we should see almost 450 million users, in a market that'll be worth $617 billion (£382 billion).

Those numbers come from 'Forecast: Mobile Payment, Worldwide, 2009-2016', a report by IT research and advisory company Gartner.

But we don't have to wait until 2016. Already, a serious chunk of today's banking and finance transactions start out on a mobile device. Just ask iovation, a company which protects online businesses and consumers against fraud and abuse.

The company has just announced that 12% of all the financial services transactions it protects come from mobile devices, from iPads and Android to Blackberry devices. Just one year ago, the figure stood at a mere 2%.

"The interest in mobile banking is overwhelming," said Max Anhoury, vice president, global sales at iovation, pointing out that 'financial services' included retail banking, money transfer services, payday lending, credit card services and prepaid cards.

The iPhone accounted for over 45% of the transactions, followed by Android devices (almost 30%) and the iPad (just over 22%). Image © Ben Chams - Fotolia

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