Mobile Banking Reaches One-Third of All Transactions in Brazil

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – Mobile banking has become Brazil’s preferred channel for banking operations and already accounts for one-third of all transactions made in the country, according to FEBRABAN (Brazilian Federation of Banks) Survey on Banking Technology 2017.

The survey showed that the use of mobile banking almost doubled in 2016, from 11.2 billion transactions to 21.9 billion and exceeded, for the first time, internet banking.

Mobile banking transactions in 2016 accounted for 34 percent of all banking transactions made in the country.

“The ability to make banking transactions using only one handheld device, the smartphone, has brought convenience, functionality, speed and the bank’s presence in the customer’s life anywhere, 24 hours per day, seven days a week,” says FEBRABAN director, Gustavo Fosse.

The study, conducted by consultancy firm Deloitte, surveyed seventeen banks with the largest operations in the country, accounting for 91 percent of the assets in Brazil’s banking industry.

According to FEBRABAN in 2016, 505 million financial transaction transfers were made through the mobile channel compared to sixty million in 2015, a surge of 741 percent. In addition, Brazilians paid 468 million bills through mobile banking, 37 percent more than in the previous year.

The number of financial accounts that use mobile banking jumped from 33 million to 42 million. Fosse said the use of mobile banking should grow even more with the increase of totally digital accounts in Brazil, opened by electronic means, without face-to-face contact between clients and banking institutions.

Data from the entity shows that currently there are almost one million exclusively digital accounts in the country, and the number is expected to reach 3.3 million by the end of the year.