This article originally appeared in the Bangkok Post.

Mobile has rapidly evolved from being a separate banking channel to becoming the hub of personal finance. Bain & Co surveyed 114,700 consumers in 17 countries and one question we asked was: What would you miss more for a day, your wallet or your mobile phone? Some 54% of US consumers chose the phone, and in China and South Korea, that share rose to more than 75%.

Mobile matters because it directly influences customers' loyalty to their primary banks. And loyalty pays off: Loyal customers stay longer, buy more and refer their friends and colleagues to the bank.

Bain found that bank customers who are frequent mobile users are 40% less likely to switch banks than those who rarely use mobile. Using mobile apps for routine transactions, such as depositing cheques, delights customers more -- by 32% -- than making routine transactions in a branch.

The survey also highlighted how today's branch model is obsolete. While bankers typically believe that frequent branch visitors are their most loyal customers, the opposite is true. Customers who use branches frequently are almost three times more likely to switch banks than infrequent branch users. Perhaps this stems from the fact that a branch visit is more than twice as likely to annoy customers as a mobile interaction.

Read the full article at the Bangkok Post.

Gerard du Toit is a partner in Bain & Co's Boston office and leads the banking sector of the Financial Services practice in the Americas; Chew Seow-Chien is a partner in the Singapore office and leader of the Financial Services practice in Southeast Asia; and Derek Keswakaroon is a principal in the Bangkok office.