Appy Christmas: Nationwide Building Society sees bumper mobile banking logins

The number of people logging in to their mobile banking on Christmas Day jumped compared with last year, Britain’s biggest building society has reported.

Nationwide Building Society said the busiest hour on Christmas Day for logging in to its mobile banking app was between 11am and 12 noon, as some people were preparing their Christmas lunch.

Nationwide members using the app on December 25 logged in around twice (1.8 times) typically.

The quietest hour on Christmas Day for Nationwide mobile banking logins was between 3pm and 4pm, perhaps because some of the Society’s members were watching the King giving his Christmas message.

This period was also the quietest period on Christmas Day in 2021, Nationwide said.

The Society said the number of unique users to its app was up by 9% compared with Christmas Day 2021 and the number of logins to the app was 8% higher than Christmas Day last year.

In total, 2.6 million logins to the mobile banking app were recorded on Christmas Day 2022, with more than 1.4 million members logging in.

While banking app logins were up, the number of logins to Nationwide’s internet banking was down by 7% compared with Christmas Day 2021.

The quietest hour for internet bank logins was also between 3pm and 4pm, Nationwide said.

Christmas Day can also be a popular day to tie up some other financial loose ends.

Earlier this week, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) reported that 3,275 people chose Christmas Day to file their self-assessment tax return.