25% of bills paid by tablets users, to be on tablets by 2017

A growing user acceptance of ‘push' mobile banking and a sharp rise in tablet adoption will drive users of transactional tablet banking services to almost 200 million in 2017.

That is according to research group Juniper Research, who says the rise will represent approximately 19% of total mobile banking customers within four years, compared to 9% this year, as consumers engage in increasingly mobile lifestyles.

The report, Mobile Banking: Handset & Tablet Market Strategies 2013-2017, also finds that, adoption of bill presentment and payment (MBPP) transactional banking by tablet users will be higher than mobile handset users, especially in developed areas where there is a higher adoption of tablet devices.

“With online payments accounting for a significant proportion of all bill payments, especially in developed markets, BPP (Bill Presentment and Payment) transactions will indeed migrate from the desktop towards tablet devices," says report author Nitin Bhas.

"Consumers often prefer managing bill payment and transactions via tablet devices compared to smartphones."

Bhas found that as consumer tablet adoption continues to rise, there will be significant migration of purchasing and transaction activity from laptops and desktops to tablet devices.

Indeed, the development of the ‘couch commerce’ trend within the payments industry will be increasingly replicated within the banking industry.

However, with banks bundling MBPP services within their mobile banking platform and additional momentum from easy to use smartphone apps, mobile phone transactional banking usage will quickly increase.

Other key findings include:

* Mobile banking users will exceed one billion in 2017, representing 15% of global mobile handset users.

* The developed markets of Far East & China, North America and Western Europe will have the highest penetration of banking users in 2017.

* Transactional banking growth across all markets will be at the expense of paper-based bill presentment, cash and cheque payment.