Fifth Third Bank is now one of the first banks in the country to integrate with five of the most prominent mobile payment platforms in the mobile payment industry.

These payments represent a move from a major U.S. bank to make the wide variety of mobile payments more widely available to its customers. These payments include some of the biggest in the industry, including both Apple Pay and Android Pay.

“At a time when more consumers want to make mobile payments, Fifth Third is pleased to be one of the first banks to offer all five mobile payment options,” said Fifth Third Bancorp President and CEO Greg Carmichael. “We are committed to providing secure and convenient ways for our customers to bank when and how they want.”

Mobile payments
As mobile payments continue to grow in popularity, consumers are beginning to become inundated with a variety of options for fulfilling their mobile payment needs.

Originally, mobile payments were restricted to a few major names, including Apple Pay, which popularized the idea, along with payment services that already had some interest in the area such as PayPal.

Since Apple Pay’s introduction a few years ago, a variety of other mobile payment systems have popped up as well, including from Apple’s chief rivals Samsung Pay and Android Pay.

Now Fifth Third Bank is riding the mobile payment wave by giving its customers access to five of the major mobile payment offerings on the market.

These five mobile payments include Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, Android Pay, Microsoft Wallet and Mastercard’s suite of payment services Masterpass.

Fifth Third has kept a careful eye on the popularity of mobile payments among its customers, noting that mobile payments made by its customers have increased by 133 percent since 2015.

For the larger market of mobile payments, Fifth Third has also noted a 183 percent increase over 2015 with that number expected to double again in the next year.

Fifth Third Bank
With mobile payments increasing in popularity, banks have had to decide whether they will continue to support mobile payment efforts or create their own platforms.

Some banks have chosen the latter, such as Chase Bank which has had some success with its own Chase Pay platform.

Others such as Fifth Third have jumped headlong into partnering with existing mobile payment providers.

Those mobile payments may be a good investment for banks looking to extend their mobile presence overseas, seeing as Masterpass was recently launched in South Africa thanks to a partnership with Vodacom (see story).

Fifth Third is hoping that providing a variety of mobile payment options to its customers will help encourage them to start using mobile payments more often – win for both the bank and the mobile payment providers.

“Consumers are rapidly adopting mobile payments and we are providing our customers with every option available on the market today,” said Jimm Bell, director of Consumer and Small Business Payments for Fifth Third Bancorp. “We want to make it simple and secure for customers to pay with their phones.”