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.

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.

MasterCard and the ING banking group have announced a mobile payment trial in the Netherlands.

It’s designed to let customers pay for online purchases using their mobile phone even if they’re not doing their internet browsing on the phone.

Mark Bridge writes:

In many ways it’s been a week of big news without big surprises. Apple announced the much-rumoured iPad mini, which is just like an iPad but smaller. It also introduced a fourth-generation update to its larger iPad, promising more speed and more 4G connectivity.

A new study from Visa and Fundamo, the mobile money platform Visa acquired last year, reveals that the majority of consumers in six developing countries are already aware of mobile money services.

In addition, nearly 90% of consumers expressed an interest in making payments or sending funds from their mobile phone in the future.