Chase achieved its third consecutive win for Overall Score, while also repeating were Wells Fargo in second place and Bank of America in third. Leaders for individual modes included BB&T for Text banking and Bank of America for its Android App. Looking across the five modes, the Scorecard found Chase performed best in two of the four categories, Functionality and Ease of Use, while Wells Fargo led in the Privacy & Security category and US Bank for the Quality & Availability category.

Keynote's latest Scorecard on who offers the best mobile banking experience could not come at a better time as a recent study reports that mobile banking is expected to reach one billion users by 2017. Advanced mobile banking functionality is a key factor in consumer acceptance with transactional mobile banking service expected to grow from 185 million in 2011 to over 550 million by 2016. These facts all underscore the importance and relevance of Keynote's latest Scorecard evaluating the mobile banking features and functionality of leading U.S. banks.

"The Scorecard assessment of mobile offerings by the top 14 retail banks and USAA indicates the largest institutions are focused on expanding functionality for mobile banking beyond the basics initially released two to three years ago, especially for smartphone apps," said Susan Foulds, manager of the Keynote Mobile Banking Scorecard. "We are seeing bill payment and transfer capabilities improve, eBills and P2P payments starting to emerge and more account self-service options. Text banking functionality has remained relatively limited in capabilities, but continues to serve a purpose for quick balance and transaction inquiries without requiring customers to sign in with their credentials."

Foulds continued: "Some banks are not updating their BlackBerry apps as they release enhancements for iPhone and Android. Most banks who offer BlackBerry apps are not updating them and are more focused on working to improve the customer experience for other mobile modes and launching tablet apps."

Methodology

Keynote Competitive Research, the industry analysis group of Keynote, conducted the Spring 2013 Mobile Banking Scorecard study, measuring and ranking 15 of the largest retail banks, based on a set of 120 objective, weighted criteria tracked as applicable in each of five modes: Text, Mobile Web, iPhone App, Android App and BlackBerry App and grouped into four categories: Functionality, Ease of Use, Privacy & Security, and Quality & Availability. Banks evaluated for the Spring 2013 Keynote Mobile Banking Scorecard include (in alphabetical order) Bank of America, BB&T, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Citizens, Fifth Third Bank, KeyBank, PNC, Regions Bank, SunTrust, TD Bank, USAA, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.