Study: 38% of Top LatAm Banks Offer M-banking

Some 38% of Latin America's largest 100 banks now offer services accessible via their customers' mobile phones, according to Spanish messaging platform supplier Latinia.

A study by Latinia showed the preferred method of mobile banking is through the exchange of SMS messages, as evidenced by 76% of the Latin American banks that have m-banking options.

Of the 38 banks with mobile messaging, eight are from Brazil, six from Argentina, six from Chile, five from Mexico and four from Venezuela.

Almost half of the banks with m-banking service (44%) use the system to send alerts and 33% are enabled for account queries.

Fifty five percent of the 38 'mobile' banks offer information over the WAP format and 31% give their users the option to download mini applications using their handsets.

SMS traffic in Latin America is growing at a double-digit rate, having grown at almost 50% in 2006 compared to the previous year, according to Latinia. In fact, the use of m-banking is growing in Latin America at the same rate as it did in Europe's m-banking boom period in 2000 due to improvements in connectivity, availability of suitable handsets and the falling cost of SMS service, Latinia's Latin America director Francesc Perez said in the statement.

Posted to the site on 4th October 2007