Millennial Media has published its Mobile Intel Series: Finance report for 2011, detailing the numbers behind mobile finance and spending in this vertical, including the types of finance brands investing in mobile, and patterns around engaging consumers.

The study was conducted by Millennial Media and comScore, highlighting how finance brands can use mobile to reach & engage consumers and build loyalty.  It also uncovers leading finance brands in mobile today, and how mobile users are using their mobile devices for financial initiatives.

Starting with general stats, 80 percent of mobile finance users now use a smartphone, an increase of 55 percent over the previous year. Nearly 37 percent of mobile subscribers who access financial services via mobile also own a tablet or e-reader.

Android led the mobile devices market with a share of 39 percent where smartphones users access their content. iOS took the second place (34 percent), followed by Blackberry at 19 percent and Windows Mobile Phone with 4 percent.

According to the latest International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report, the worldwide smartphone market grew 42.5% year over year in 1Q12, spurring more brands and financial institutions to invest in mobile payments.

Mobile finance users are young and wealthy

Mobile finance users generally have a higher annual income and over-index in the 75k+ and 100k+ income brackets. The number of mobile finance users between 18-34 ages is almost double the overall mobile average.

Mobile finance users value brand names and they are willing to pay more for a trusted company service. Almost 95 percent mobile finance users are more likely to be influenced by a celebrity endorsement than the overall mobile audience.  Fifty percent of mobile finance users claim they will stick with a brand they like.

Finance, the number one global advertising vertical brand

In terms of the verticals represented on Millennial’s network, several verticals continue to see substantial increases.  Finance was the number one global vertical on the Millennial Media platform in 2011, growing over 300 percent from 2010 to 2011.

The total number of finance-related mobile advertisements increased 34 percent from September 2010 to September 2011.  Moreover, six different types of finance sub-categories contribute to the overall growth of mobile advertising. The largest sub-category is insurance with a 42 percent share of the total spend; banking was second (28 percent), and financial services and credit cards were third (16 percent) and fourth (10 percent).

Mobile banking was the finance sub-category accessed most frequently by consumers.  Thirty-two percent of users accessed banking content one to three times per month, 35 percent accessed banking content once a week, and 22 percent accessed it almost every day.

Lead Generation Topped the Mobile Finance Campaign Goals

Lead Generation and Registration was by far the most popular campaign goal for finance advertisers, making up 70 percent of all campaigns. Finance brands were more successful, providing mobile related banking and financial services accounts, credit cards, and insurance coverage and more related services.

In addition, finance marketers allowed finance mobile users to place a call or enroll, subscribe or join at a higher rate than the average mobile user, fueling more lead generation-focused campaign.

Opportunities for Finance Brands

As consumers are starting utilizing mobile payment technology like NFC, they will be interacting even more with their devices. For brands, this is a great opportunity to expand their portfolio by running engaging content, product launch campaigns, and targeting the mobile as a customer engagement channel.

Brands can also engage their consumers with mobile video, take advantage of location-based targeting, optimize their apps to run various campaigns to test different targeting methods, ad types, and creative executions.

Consumer activity around mobile wallet services are on rise.  JiWire’s latest Mobile Audience Insights Report indicates that more than 37 percent users have used a mobile wallet app within the last quarter of 2012.