Quarantine inspired a boom in financial services on smartphones

According to the results of the annual international mobile financial services market survey, since the beginning of the quarantine in 2020, the use of mobile devices has increased significantly, by as much as 45 percent worldwide, or 16.3 billion hours, and the time spent using financial services apps has also increased. This trend, which indicates changing consumer habits, has also become evident in Lithuania.

The use of mobile Internet continues to grow.

According to data from global mobile app marketing and optimization company Liftoff, which was designed to assess the trends in the use of mobile financial services worldwide in 2020 and 2021, the installation of financial apps on phones increased by 15 percent in 2020 compared to 2019. This means that users installed 4.6 billion financial services apps during the year.

The time spent using them also increased impressively during the year – by as much as 45 percent and reached 16.3 billion hours. This data shows how consumers trust financial solutions for phones, appreciate their convenience, adaptation to everyday needs and, most importantly, security.

In 2021 Tele2, the mobile operator with the largest share of the electronic communications market in terms of the number of SIM cards in the first quarter, announces that the increased consumption of mobile Internet data was due to the established remote work and home learning due to the pandemic

“Compared to the same time last year, in the first quarter of 2021, Tele2 customers used as much as 56.2 percent more data – 78.5 thousand TB. This means that Lithuanians are spending more and more time using mobile communication – on average, each Tele2 customer used a little more than 22 GB per month. This trend does not seem to be stopping in the near future,” said Asta Buitkutė, Tele2’s public relations representative.

An opportunity to try out mobile payments

The financial services provider PerlasGo is also noticing the increased demand for mobile services. More than 70 percent of users of the mobile app Perlas Go say that the quarantine has encouraged them to look for new ways to pay bills and has increased the number of financial transactions performed by phone. “We wanted to assess changes in customer behavior and the expectations they had last year, so we surveyed our customers. We asked them an open question about why they started paying utility and other bills by phone. As many as 3 out of 4 respondents cited the quarantine and the pandemic as the main reason that prompted them to become more interested in mobile payments and finally try them out,” said Tomas Kupčinskas, product manager at Perlas Go at Perlas Finance.

T. Kupčinskas pointed out that mobile devices account for almost 40 percent of internet market in Lithuania, so the desire of consumers to conveniently manage all daily services using mobile devices is completely timely. “The latest international “Liftoff” mobile financial devices report shows that “fintech” apps, designed for financial technology services, investment management, trading, personal finance management and the like, encourage significantly greater consumer engagement than regular banking apps. This is one of the reasons why this market is growing so rapidly,” shares a representative of “Perlas Go”.

All the most important financial decisions in the palm of your hand

According to T. Kupčinskas, even before the pandemic, it became common to order food, household items or clothes with a few clicks, so it is natural that services such as bill payment are also moving to smart devices.

“Holding a smartphone in our hands, we can use all the most important services, and most importantly, we can do it regardless of where we are and what time we do it. Automated reminders that pop up on the phone screen also add a lot of convenience. Mobile apps for everyday payments are also characterized by ease of use, attractive design, and paying bills is easy, understandable, and most importantly, fast.

With the growth of mobile device usage, many security solutions have also emerged that ensure the security of not only personal but also financial data. Mobile devices are so popular that many new security solutions are primarily friendly to phone users and only later adapted to computers. All these insights guide us in developing Perlas Go, because in this way we can not only meet the needs of customers, but also accustom them to a new – faster, more convenient management of accounts and other financial services, with everything in the palm of our hand,” says T. Kupčinskas.

The Perlas Go expert predicts that Lithuanians will move more and more financial services to mobile devices. “Along with convenience, the pandemic has also reminded us that by choosing quick solutions for managing daily financial and other services, we will have more time for ourselves and our loved ones, so we are sure that this trend will not change even after the pandemic and quarantine are over,” predicted T. Kupčinskas.