In March 2012, Celent evaluated the mobile banking channel at each of the top banks in the US. A number of trends across mobile apps were beginning to emerge. More apps were providing the ability to manage alerts from a mobile device. Remote deposit capture became more and more prevalent. Person-to-person payments, while in their nascence, were burgeoning.

In the report What App, Doc?: An Updated Biannual Evaluation of Mobile Banking at the Top US Banks, Celent provides a refreshed look at the mobile offerings from top US banks. The emphasis is on bank apps that have shown the most development since the aforementioned report was published. Development could mean a redesigned user interface, added functionality, enhanced functionality, or expansion into multiple platforms.

Although not quite table stakes, mobile remote deposit capture (RDC) soon will be. The percentage of banks with no plans to implement mobile RDC has dropped from 72% in 2009 to 20% in 2012. Celent does not expect this trend to diminish.

“Banks can no longer sit by and let mobility evolve without taking part. What took online banking a decade to achieve is taking mobile only a fraction of the time,” says Stephen Greer, Analyst with Celent’s Banking Group and coauthor of the report. “Banks are increasingly trying to meet the demands of consumers who are open to a wide variety of contact points.”

This report examines trends in the industry, followed by an in-depth look at the features and functionality of each mobile offering through a number of comparison tables. The report then scores these offerings to show where the apps have come relative to each other in the last six months. Each bank is profiled individually, and the report finishes by combining the best of each mobile offering into what Celent calls the best-of-breed mobile app.

This 70-page report contains 51 figures and 16 tables.