The ROI Of Mobile Banking

Consumer adoption of mobile banking has accelerated over the past few years. In the US, the proportion of online adults who are mobile bankers has quadrupled from 4% in 2006 to 16% at the end of 2010. This growth has eBusiness leaders at financial institutions large and small racing to boost their presence in the mobile space. Yet few eBusiness teams have articulated a clear business case for selling to and supporting customers through the mobile channel. To help institutions calculate the potential ROI of their firms' mobile banking initiatives, Forrester developed a model based on the estimated costs and projected benefits of launching a full-service mobile banking offering. Our model shows an average ROI of 15.7% for a complete mobile banking service, including access through native applications and the mobile Web. While far from small, this is hardly a ringing endorsement of mobile as a significant profit center for banks. But multiple factors make it likely that the next few years will bring advances in mobile banking that could potentially boost the return from offering mobile services to bank customers.