There is a lot of money to be made in the mobile finance market,but only if you understand the consumers.

The Mobile Intel Series: Finance, a recent surveyof more than 300 million global mobile users by MillennialMedia and comScore, revealed that finance was oneof the biggest global vertical industries in 2011, growingmore than 300 percent from the previous year (second only totechnology, which grew nearly 700 percent).

Of this growing finance category, there were severalsub-categories. The largest was insurance with 42 percent of thetotal, followed by banking, financial services and then creditcards.

Mobile banking was the finance sub-category accessed mostfrequently by consumers. About 35 percent accessed banking contentonce per week and 22 percent accessed it almost every day (seechart: Frequency of Use by Mobile Finance Users in VariousSectors).

"Finance has been among the leading mobile advertising verticalsfor years, but the industry is still evolving, and it's moreimportant than ever for advertisers to understand the landscape,"Senior Vice President, Product of Millennial Media, Jamie Fellows,said in a press release. "Finance advertisers have anopportunity to strategically create campaigns that will engageconsumers in a variety of ways, unique to their brand."

Other notable findings by the report include:

• Around 80 percent of mobile finance users own a Smartphone—anincrease of 55 percent year-over-year. Additionally, 37 percent ofmobile finance users own a non-phone connected device (tablet,e-reader, MP3 player, etc.).
• Mobile finance users generally fall between ages 18-34 (seechart: Mobile Finance Users). The number of users in thatage range almost doubles the overall mobile average. Users alsoover-index in the 75k+ and 100k+ income brackets.
• Overall, mobile finance users are 55 percent male and 45percent female.
• Almost half of mobile finance users identify themselves as risktakers, compared to 35 percent of the total mobile audience.
• About 50 percent of mobile finance users claim theywill stick with a brand they like. But they alsoare 95 percent more likely to be influenced by a celebrityendorsement than the overall mobile audience.
• Beyond finance content, mobile finance users most frequentlyspend time on apps and sites focused on weather (84 percent), maps(74 percent), general news (67 percent), sports information (58percent), entertainment news (58 percent) and technology news (42percent).

Consumers interact with their mobile devices in new ways,according to survey results. While mobile browsers are the dominantway users access mobile finance information, apps are the secondmost common. These customers' relationships with mobile content areconstantly changing. If finance brands want to grow, they need tocommit to the world of mobile advertising.