Call Bank of America the Laggard of Mobile Banking.
It appears that Bank of America Corp. is not keeping pace with Wells Fargo & Co. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. in the drive to bring users to its mobile platform. A year ago, Bank of America had about 800,000 fewer mobile users than JPMorgan Chase. Today, that number is closer to 1.7 million.
While Chase and Wells saw year-over-year growth above 22%, B of A achieved just 17.4% growth. For the second quarter of 2014, Chase and Wells grew users at a rate of 4.9% and 4.8%, respectively. Bank of America managed just 3.3%.
It’s not that Bank of America’s mobile effort is in terrible shape. The bank counts 15.5 active users, up from 15 million last quarter. In all, 10% of consumer deposits are performed though B of A’s mobile channel. These are enviable figures — unless you’re Chase or Wells. In the first quarter of 2013, B of A said it was adding 10,000 mobile users a day. That number is now down to about 5,500 per day for the second quarter of 2014. Again, not so shabby.
One thing B of A is doing that Chase is not doing — yet — is cutting branches. Bank of America closed a net 72 branches last quarter, while Chase added four.