How Mobile Banking in the Digital Era can reshape the Banking Landscape: a literature review

The impacts of FinTechs (Financial Technology) and digitalization on the financial sector, and on the banking industry in particular, are more and more consistent, almost disruptive. Progress in mobile device development, with the actual diffusion of smartphones, with a cheaper and widely-spread Internet have led to a growing number of Mobile Banking users all over the world. The present research wants to analyze the role of Mobile Banking in the present financial digital framework according to the banking perspective. To reach this aim the paper starts with a literature review regarding the significance of Mobile Banking, being difficult to find a relative univocal definition in literature, with no consensus for example in its definition and role in developed and developing countries. Then the paper investigates and explores the various channels through which Mobile Money Services affect bank performances. The analysis, based on a review of the relative existing literature, is able to point out that the actual disruptive changes in mobile financial services and payments can represent also a great opportunity for banks to reduce their marginal costs and to increase their productivity, giving them the possibility to leverage innovative and less costly business models too. The paper in its final part indicates also some topics for further researches.