Financial services go mobile

New players tip the balance

The way people access and consume financial services has changed significantly over the last decade, with mobile emerging as a new platform and channel. In this report, we look at the intersection between finance and mobile across different perspectives: competitive landscape, consumer usage and enabling technologies. We also look at which markets are seeing the most disruption to incumbent financial institutions and the players that can benefit the most from this, including operators such as Orange and Turkcell and tech players such as Apple, Ant Financial, and Tencent (WeChat).

According to the GSMA Intelligence Consumer Survey, use of financial services on mobiles grew significantly in 2018 across developed and developing markets. Growth was particularly strong in China, which saw double-digit growth in all services.

Millennials use mobile financial services at a much higher rate than other adults, which is an indicator that mobile finance is only set to grow. Consumers are also becoming more independent, willing to use financial services from new entrants and relying less on advice from traditional sources (banks).

New entrants globally have benefitted from supportive capital markets in recent years, raising a record amount of VC funding in 2018. However, the regulatory environment is not a level playing field across all countries; new entrants in Europe, and particularly the UK, have taken a greater share of growth over the past decade than elsewhere.