Over 1.75 billion users will have used their mobile devices for banking by the end of 2019, up from 800 million this year, according to Juniper Research.

Mobile banking is already well established in financial institutions in the west. For instance, Bank of America announced in 2013 that more of its customers logged in to its mobile service than online.

Now emerging markets are following suit. Over the past 12 month, countries such as China, India and Bangladesh have seen a significant growth in mobile banking.

The mobile channel has become key to customer retention for banks but is also another reason for users not to visit their local branch. The number of branch visits by customers is decreasing and there have been closures of physical branches over the past two years.