UrBC, Yekaterinburg, December 8, 2016. The share of online transactions made via a smartphone browser or app came to 70% of all e-banking transactions at the Ural Bank for Reconstruction & Development (UBRD); one year earlier, the figure was only 50%, the bank’s press service reports.

Mobile banking grew more popular both because increasingly more people now own smartphones (Yandex reports 29% of unique web page hits come from mobile devices, 75% of which are phones) and because m-banking options are now much more diverse.

‘Our customers’ feedback shows clearly that they are no longer happy with a limited number of m-banking options such as making payments or doing card-to-card transfers. Our customers want a full-fledged finance management system that lets them check on interest rates on deposits, track their monthly loan repayments, order bank cards, and pay their traffic fines and taxes,’ says URBD Internet Technologies Director Anton Dmitriyev.

As customers migrate to online banking, the number of online payments goes up as well. 60% of all customer payments are currently made remotely, with 37% of e-banking transactions; also, the number of UBRD online banking subscribers rose by 22% between September 2015 and September 2016.