Business: Kiwis smarten up with money

More people are handling their banking business via PCs or mobile phones. Photo/Bevan Conley

If you ever wondered how far and how rapidly customers are shifting to mobile banking, the latest Westpac survey is a good indicator.

An online survey of 820 people found that nearly 70 per cent of them are confident to deal with amounts up to $10,000 through mobile banking.

The latest Westpac Mobile Banking Report follows a similar survey late last year.

But the findings are irrefutable - Kiwis are spending more time using mobile banking and doing more specialised tasks.

Simon Pomeroy, chief digital officer for Westpac, said the report shows that New Zealanders are using mobile banking more, becoming more comfortable and familiar with it and extending what they do.

"The report underlines the convenience and control that customers want to have over their banking. They can do what they want, when they want from wherever they want," he said.

The survey also showed that customers using mobile banking had an increased awareness of their finances, were paying their bills on time, it was easy to do and saved time.

Almost three-quarters of those surveyed said they want to be able to do everything on a mobile device that they can do on a desktop computer and that was something the bank was aiming to deliver to customers in August or September this year.

Mr Pomeroy also said the report gave an insight into the impact mobile banking was having on visiting Westpac branches. More than half said they were visiting a branch less.

The report also shows that Kiwis are using smart devices more often throughout the day and while the use of tablets is growing strongly, the smart phone is still the device of choice.

And this increased usage was showing up in a 23 per cent growth in the volume of mobile banking payments between January and May 2014 by customers; a total of 1.55 million payments for a value of $368 million.