Mobile buying booms in US, banking in India

But mobile banking is most popular in Asia and has made particular gains in India, where much of the country has limited banking infrastructure. Looking to remedy this problem, the Indian government in 2008 started encouraging banks to launch mobile platforms, he said.

"They see mobile banking as a way to accelerate the acceptance of personal financial services," Beccue said. More than half of Asia's mobile banking customers in 2009 were in India.

Worldwide, the number of mobile-banking users grew from 24.4 million in 2008 to 52.1 million in 2009. Half of those users were in the Asia-Pacific region, Beccue said.

ABI expects to see 407 million people worldwide use mobile banking by 2015. But by that time, nearly as many people will be handling their money through their phones without ever opening a bank account: By then, about 405 million people will be using point-to-point payment systems in which the mobile operator takes in and pays out the cash, Beccue said.

Point-to-point payment systems are becoming an important financial platform in countries where most people have never had access to banks, he said.