The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (FRBB) conducted a mobile banking and payments survey
of financial institutions (FIs) in New England between August and September 2012. The
purpose of the survey was to determine if more FIs had begun to offer mobile financial services
since the previous survey conducted in 2008, and to determine what types of mobile services
they were offering. The FRBB also hoped to gain insights into the strategies and measures that
regional FIs pursued to provide mobile financial services to their customers.

Key findings include:

• One hundred eighteen FIs reported that they currently offer or have plans to offer mobile banking and payment services within the next 24 months, while eight respondents do not plan to offer mobile banking or payments at this time, primarily due to the lack of customer interest and resource constraints.
• Security continues to be a key challenge for FIs that offer –as well as those that do not offer –mobile banking.
• Adoption of mobile payments remains low, but over one-third of FIs reported that they plan to offer some mobile payment services in the next three years.