American banks are ditching planned BlackBerry apps as the Canadian brand's market share tumbles in the face of Apple's iPhone and Google's Android, according to Keynote Systems.

Chase Bank comes out on top of the Keynote mobile banking scorecard, for its second consecutive win, ahead of Wells Fargo and Bank of America.



BB&T has been crowned the winner for text banking, Wells Fargo for mobile Web, Chase for iPhone and BlackBerry apps and Bank of America for its Android app. Chase offers the best overall functionality and ease of use while Wells Fargo leads in privacy and security and quality and availability.



Chris Musto, general manager, customer experience delivery, Keynote, says that the big banks tend to offer the strongest mobile apps but smaller players are holding their own in text services.



One option not engendering much enthusiasm is BlackBerry. "Year over year, we saw that banks that had planned BlackBerry Smartphones apps, are pulling back with the falling market share of the brand," says Musto.



Meanwhile, mobile is now moving beyond its initial position as a subset of online banking with features such as remote cheque deposits. However, says Musto: "The one obvious hold up is mobile payments, which is still largely absent from mobile banking."