The survey revealed a surprising disparity in what consumers want in a mobile banking app and what they actually get from their banking institution. Americans increasingly want, and expect, to be able to conduct more advanced functions like depositing checks and receiving real-time notifications on account activity from their mobile banking apps.

"There's an app for everything in today's mobile-driven consumer environment. And, as the economy has suffered over the past few years, consumers are turning to apps for financial management as well," said Brian Moore, financial services market manager for Varolii. "However, our study shows that most banks are failing to deliver on consumer expectations with first or second generation mobile applications."

Nearly two in three consumers believe it's their bank's responsibility to immediately alert them when they have a low balance or insufficient funds to pay a bill. In fact, nearly 70 percent of consumers believe that a banking application could have helped them avoid a financial problem in the past such as a costly and embarrassing overdraft or bounced check.

Yet, 68 percent have never been notified of a low balance or reminder to pay a bill. And, the younger consumers are, the more strongly they believe in the importance of banks being proactive -- 73 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds believe they should receive notifications from their banks versus 56 percent of those over 55 years old. The survey also identified other key capabilities that consumers want for a superior customer experience such as notification of irregular account activity or notice of a low balance.

"The modern digital consumer clearly sees value in banking apps. Banking institutions have an opportunity to create third generation mobile applications that can enable a more proactive role in their customers' finances and use Varolii to intelligently and proactively reach them through their applications with personalized, real-time notifications of events that are about to impact their accounts," said Moore.

Not only do consumers want to be contacted but many want to be reached on a combination of digital channels. According to the research, consumers want to receive these notifications and reminders by email (47 percent), text message (22 percent) and through their smartphone application (13 percent).

"Mobile banking applications are on the rise and an ever-growing base of young consumers are using them and expecting more advanced capabilities," said David McCann, CEO at Varolii. "As a leading customer interaction management provider, we are uniquely positioned to help banks 'interaction-enable' their mobile applications to provide the proactive notices that consumers require. We believe that most institutions are operating on second generation applications. Today, institutions need to upgrade to the next level by embedding more proactive, rules-based outreach into their application code. It is also important to realize that smartphone apps are just one more channel that has to be orchestrated into a holistic customer experience across voice, text, email and mobile devices."