Getting onto the small screen
With 70 per cent of Australians expecting to own a smartphone by mid 2014, there is a big potential market for wealth management applications.
According to RFi director Alan Shields, the National Australia Bank and the Commonwealth Bank released statistics in the last six months showing that one-third of all logons to their online banking systems came via smartphone devices.
Of the total population (including those who don't own a smartphone), 3 per cent of Australians are trading shares on their mobile device and 8 per cent are using them to look up share prices, said Shields.
"The number one thing people want via any financial services application on their phone is the ability to find best prices on items they want to buy," he said.
On average, users only have two finance applications on their smartphone, he added.
RFi research has also found that access to a banking account on a mobile phone - which is an important influence of satisfaction for consumers - is currently at unsatisfactory levels.
According to BanterMob director Kelly Slessor, 67 per cent of smartphone users are willing to pay up to $8 for a financial services app.
Of the top 10 financial services apps on the Apple App Store, eight are personal finance apps, she said.
Kelly predicted that financial organisations would start to redesign their consumer offering based on the 'small screen' of the smartphone.
"When you do mobile it forces you to focus on the consumer first. It's impossible to stuff into that small screen all these financial products," she said.
Positive reviews on the Apple App Store are a big driver of consumer take-up, and negative reviews can be disastrous, she added.
"All of these reviews, it's not like Facebook or Twitter where you can jump on and deal with it straight away. These reviews stay there. You have to work harder to get rid of these bad reviews and the negative sentiment," Slessor said.
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