UK Banking Customers Ditching Branches For Smartphone Apps

British banking customers are increasingly ditching high-street branches for mobile banking, according to recent research recent by Barclays.

A study by the bank found that usage of its mobile banking apps has grown hugely in recent times, with customers accessing the offerings 29 times a second. In contrast, the average customer only visits a physical branch less than twice a month, but uses Barclays Mobile Banking 26 times a month.

Since the bank launched its Barclays Mobile Banking and Pingit apps in 2012, they have been downloaded more than 5m times, and are being accessed 17.5m times each week with more than £4bn in payments and transfers being made each month during July and August 2014. Barclays’ apps processed a record £4bn worth of transactions over the month of August – working out to around almost £1,500 every second and £90,000 every minute.

Staying safe

“Millions of Barclays customers use digital banking every day and its popularity is, in part due to the robust safety measures we have in place across those channels,” said Alex Grant, managing director of fraud prevention at Barclays.

“Having our security systems independently and rigorously tested to achieve the BSI kitemark clearly demonstrates our continued commitment to safeguard our customers’ finances and data.  The BSI kitemark is a widely trusted and we’re proud to be the first bank to gain the certification for our mobile banking and Pingit apps.”

Barclays has been working hard to ensure its customers stay safe online when using its services, teaming up with Kaspersky to offer internet security products free of charge to all its online and mobile banking customers.

The bank also has 8,000 “Digital Eagles” in branch to help anyone that may be less tech-savvy to familiarise themselves with mobile and online banking.

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