Consumers use mobile credit card apps to manage debt

Consumers who have been trying to deal with their outstanding credit card debt responsibly may now be more likely to turn to mobile solutions to handle their accounts.

The number of consumers who are using their smartphones to access credit card account information grew significantly between December 2010 and June 2011, according to a report from the digital information tracking company comScore. In all, nearly 18.4 million consumers used a mobile browser to access credit card information, up 23 percent from the previous period's total of more than 14.9 million.

But the greater growth was seen in the number of consumers using smartphone applications to access these details, the report said. The number of credit card app users rose 43 percent to more than 6 million, up from nearly 4.2 million at the end of 2010.

Many experts agree that mobile phones are the future of the credit card industry, as consumers will be able to not only check their account data on these devices, but also use them to make purchases.