We came across a compelling piece of research, 'Mobile Life', and article published this week by TNS:

One in ten UK consumers now use ‘mobile wallet’ whilst one in five use mobile banking

The use of ‘mobile wallet’ technology amongst UK consumers has more than doubled in the last 12 months with more than one in ten people now making payments via their mobile, says Mobile Life, a TNS research paper into use of mobiles in the UK. Moreover, one in five UK consumers now use their mobile to perform basic banking functions such as checking their account balance - also up more than 100% on last year.

Thanks largely to the surge in smartphone technology and the accessibility of such products to the wider market, in the UK 11.9% of consumers now use their mobiles to make payments online. The figure, up from only 5.9% twelve months ago, means more than one in ten of us now uses mobile wallet technology. The percentage of people who regularly bank via their mobile is now 20.4%, up from 9.7% in 2010, again demonstrating the rapidly growing adoption of mobile technology.

Mobile wallet technology allows the consumer to use their phone like a debit or credit card to pay for items online or in-store. It doesn’t require a bank account and can be topped up with money to store in order to facilitate easy transactions at any time. Mobile banking encompasses the more basic functions of online finance, like checking your account balance or making purchases securely, both of which can be performed either through apps or mobile internet.

Stephen Yap, Group Director at TNS Technology, said, “The huge increase in the use of mobile wallet technology in the UK shows the dramatic effect technology is having on our lifestyles. The incredible success of the smartphone is encouraging people to migrate many of their key online activities onto their mobile. In the last twelve months in particular the openness of the Android platform has increased handset competition and driven down prices, meaning that more and more people are able to use their handset as a payment tool.”

“As we become more familiar with smartphones and as mobile networks improve, we should see this number increase further, until mobile is the primary platform for most everyday online functions, including making payments,” said Yap. “Soon we could be seeing phones as our primary portals for all online needs, particularly as the growth of the cloud will place less emphasis on storage space and more on mobile access points.”

On the rise in mobile banking, Yap said, “The increase in mobile banking is a further proof point that mobile is the coming platform. Banks need to get their house in order to ensure that their mobile offer is as strong as their online one, as this could rapidly become a key differentiator for consumers.”

Source: TNS 'Mobile Life' 2011

A big thank you to everyone who joined us on Wednesday for our first 'Google Loves Mobile' Financial Services event at The May Fair hotel. The feedback so far has been really positive and we hope to run more events like this in the future and make them even better, so please do take a moment if you were at the event to let us know what you thought.

We had a day full of great speakers - we heard from Simon Andrews, founder of Addictive!; Google's Ian Carrington and Amanda Rosenberg; then Jon Mew, Head of Mobile for the IAB; Daniel Rosen of AKQA and lastly Reto Meier from Google, before heading into an engaging panel session. Jedward were also seen wandering the hotel, so a day of big hitters ;)

You can revisit the presentations from the day (for the speakers who used slides), and download them here

You can also watch video versions of Amanda's mobile Search and Display demos:

Thanks again to everyone who contributed, and we hope to see lots of you at the next Google UK Finance event!

You might have seen NMA's vertical focus piece on Finance from the 26th August. It's chock full of advertiser points of view from the sector, and raises some interesting discussion points. Our own head, Ian Morgan, was asked to comment on some trends and issues affecting the financial services market, such as social media, consumer interaction, keyword management, and mobile marketing. These are all key issues and ones we're bound to be discussing further in coming months.

Key discussion points:

• The UK financial services industry is back to its fastest growth rate since September 2007 (Source: CBI)
• The financial services industry has been slow to take up social media, due to concerns over regulation and the traditionally conservative nature of finance sector marketing
• Some advertisers have managed to break the mold and lead the way with successful social media campaigns, for both traffic acquisition and brand awareness/engagement
• Consumer appetite for conversation and reassurance is strong, raising a challenge for all financial services advertisers to formulate a response to this demand
• Strategic search management is vital. Keeping abreast of online consumer demand and reacting by appearing against relevant keywords (including longtail) and providing tailored adtext will allow advertisers to gain cost effective leads. Using new ad formats such as Sitelinks will allow better traffic management and help guide users to the most relevant of your products or offers.
• Mobile marketing is a clear opportunity for financial services advertisers. Again, some advertisers have innovated early, whilst others are lagging behind.

We encourage all financial services advertisers to have discussions around these important areas. Innovate where you can, learn from others in your sector, and most importantly, test and learn!

We've been talking about mobile search marketing for some time, and advertisers in the Finance sector are increasingly forming strategies and starting to make moves in this area.

If you look at growth trends for a term like 'car insurance', for queries made on mobile devices over recent months, it's clear that consumers are ready to engage on the mobile platform.


Source: Google internal

The challenge for advertisers is to ensure that your brand is ready to be found in the mobile space, and to facilitate interaction and loyalty with your target consumer. We've formed some high level best practices for mobile marketing:

Be Clear
What are your mobile business objectives? Conversions; Engagement; Downloads..?

Be Found
Build optimised campaigns for mobile, and use engaging ad formats such as Click-to-Call and Location Extensions with Maps

Be Ready
Create a website that follows mobile best practices

Be Smarter
Consistently track and report, and optimise accordingly

Read more in Ian Carrington's (Mobile Advertising Sales Director, Google EMEA) mobile strategy article in Marketing Week