Mobile banking has seen significant worldwide adoption in the last twelve months, according to a new report from global consultancy Bain & Company. Its Customer Loyalty in Retail Banking report notes that the highest mobile banking penetration was in South Korea, where 47% of respondents had interacted with mobile banking in the previous three months.

The highest frequency of using mobile banking was noticed in the USA, with survey respondents averaging 4.9 mobile transactions in the previous three months.

Juniper Research has revised its forecasts for the worldwide NFC market, lowering its estimates for NFC growth in North America and Western Europe.

It says Apple’s decision not to include NFC technology in its iPhone 5 has reduced the confidence of brands and retailers, which means we’ll see fewer NFC marketing campaigns and less interest in rolling out new Point of Sale equipment.

The M-Pesa mobile payment and money transfer service, which was launched five years ago in Kenya by the Safaricom network, has been joined by a savings and loan facility called M-Shwari.

The new facility has been set up by Vodafone, Safaricom and the Commercial Bank of Africa.

O2 Media, the O2 UK network’s mobile advertising and marketing business, has become part of the Weve partnership.

It was set up in 2009 to help big brands advertise to O2 customers.

Mark Bridge writes:

We’re moving into that time of year where product announcements are replaced by promotional campaigns and sales figures. Apple revealed it had sold three million assorted iPad tablets in just three days, while Samsung said its Galaxy SIII smartphone had sold more than 30 million units since its launch in May.