Almost 40% of us now use banking apps

More than 19.6 million people used banking apps in 2016, with use of banking apps rising a whopping 354% between 2012 and 2017, according to research by the British Bankers' Association (BBA).

Data for 2016 from Barclays, Co-op Bank, Clydesdale and Yorkshire Banks, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Santander, also showed:

• A 57% increase in app transactions.

• A 225% increase in contactless card spending.

• Nearly two-thirds of all cards are contactless.

• There were 932 million transactions equating to 30 transactions per second.

• 4.4 million customer webchats took place in 2016 – the equivalent of 510 webchats every hour and an increase of 24% on the previous year.

The BBA report also found people are increasingly using apps for a variety of services – there was a 30% rise in customers using an app to manage their savings, 46% for their credit cards and 86% for their mortgage or investment accounts.

Eric Leenders, the BBA's managing director for retail and commercial banking, said: "Customers' appetite for using technology to manage their money on the move is showing no signs of abating, with banking apps now the principle means by which we access our current accounts.

"And this doesn't appear to be a fad, with more and more people moving beyond payments, increasingly using apps to access a broader range of banking services, such as savings, credit cards, mortgage and investment accounts."

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