Why Did Consumers Suddenly Sour on Mobile Banking and Shopping?

According to a new poll by ID security firm Intercede, the people have spoken but it is not in favor of mobile banking or shopping.

Among those polled, 44 percent said they would never use a mobile banking service while 48 percent said they are uninterested in ever using any sort of mobile payments app.  Meanwhile 20 percent said they don’t really feel safe shopping on a smart phone while a whopping 63 percent noted they are generally worried about security on their mobile phone.

Intercede CEO Richard Paris noted that while there are a variety of security solutions already out there for smart phones—biometrics, secure microSD, virtual smart cards—these features are only as good as the app developers build around them.

“If this baseline security technology was more widely embraced, the cellphone has the potential to be the personal security enabler of the future and not the security bleed it is viewed as being today,” Intercede CEO Richard Parris told CBS News in an email.

Paris further noted that Apple, due to its vertical integration, is at this point doing a better job of providing for mobile security than its Android powered counterparts.

“Google needs to encourage the app community to start writing secure apps using the TrustZone technology that is already embedded in the latest core processors to secure the customer experience,” Parris noted. “They also need to work with service providers, such as banks and retailers, to ensure their services can only be accessed from secure apps.”