How to encourage customers to use mobile banking apps and engage them in ecosystem usage

Mobile banking apps tend to solve more tasks that don’t directly relate to financial services. These are new challenges for banks — to increase the depth of the mobile app usage, improve digital product business metrics, and set the development priorities in the right way: either bid on new products or stay focused on the core functionality.

Let’s try to find some insights for making the right decisions in Mobile Banking Rank 2021 research results.

The number of daily finance management tasks stays the same

Market competitors have been focused on certain user flows and strive to make them easier and more convenient to become the number one bank for payment purposes. These are the promising UX features:

• If there are a phone number or banking credentials stored in the clipboard, the app advises transferring money or paying the phone bill. This reduces extra steps and increases customers’ activity.
• Checking for utility bills using the home address: the user can choose the credentials to find bills with. Transferring customers to pay the bills in the app helps increase the fee and commission income.
• Displaying active subscriptions for services helps to be in control and terminate the unnecessary ones in time. It’d be helpful to display the time and amount of upcoming payments and the terms of the subscription. This can also be done with voice assistants, but it’s not that convenient for expenses analysis.
• Global search solves the overload interface issues and helps reach the goals faster. The banks develop the search with popular phrase shortcuts and search history so that the customers wouldn’t need to type a query again.
• Displaying transfer limits right on the transfer screen helps keep up the loyalty, as the customers face no unexpected fees. The screen may also contain detailed info on fees and their calculation.

The flagship competitors bid on personalization and niche audiences’ needs.

Smartphones have almost become a fully functional banking branch

Most of the apps are highly developed in terms of sales, products advising, paperwork, and transaction disputes. The strongest development vectors are non-customer sales, pre-approved credit card offers, insurance sales, and changing the ID credentials. This is the exceptional practice of digital office:

• After the credit report check, the bank can make a loan offer, and display the chance of approval and personal conditions. This is the chance to sell a product with less acquisition and scoring costs.
• A credit limit increase can also highlight a good chance for cross-sales. The bank may offer a convenient feature for managing the credit limit or let the customer choose the limit itself.
• Installment plans for existing transactions can also be profitable for both banks and customers. The bank can offer this feature on the card screen where customers can choose the terms, payment amount and see the fee.
• If a customer has problems paying the loan debt, the bank may offer to change the date and amount of payments with no need for repayment holidays. This can be considered as the distant loan restructuring that helps gain more profit and lower the risks of non-return.
• Simple investments may also arrange extra income while customers would have new instruments for savings.

We see the future of distant identification and KYC, a pre-login area developed into a fully functional sales channel, and user experience humanization.

Ecosystems development becomes a competitive advantage

Ecosystems tend to clearly explain benefits, help quickly find necessary offers and ease access, and establish an emotional connection with customers via gamification and infotainment.

• Onboarding customers into the ecosystem helps monetize them quicker: give occasional tips on where the marketplace is and how it works. The tips after the first login are not enough.
• Integrating partners’ websites into your marketplace eases the search for offers, and in-app payment methods help make the purchase process easier.
• Subscriptions increase monetization efficiency and offer customers more benefits when using all of the ecosystem offers. This is the way to increase transaction activity and loyalty and lower the outflow.
• Awareness of granted benefits can highly motivate customers for further purchases. Partners’ bonuses need to be highlighted differently from the usual cashback in the transaction history to clearly show the benefits of the ecosystem.
• Even if the nature of the business model doesn’t allow quick bonuses assessment, there’s an alternative way of showing the forecast. Customers will see that the transaction’s okay and the bonus is to come. It decreases the uncertainty level and helps increase confidence in the bank.

The best ecosystems can solve user tasks on all of the user journey. It’s not just a bonuses provider, but a complete lifestyle guide.

About the study

Mobile Banking Rank is the annual survey of mobile banking effectiveness for individuals. This year we tried to find out how mobile banking can become a business tool that attracts, retains, and monetizes users.

40 mobile apps from 20 banks and financial companies were evaluated separately on two types of mobile devices: iPhone and Android smartphones. Those are the most technologically advanced (top-10 last year's rating) and the most popular (top-20 SimilarWeb Usage rank in the finance category). Each mobile bank participated in a desk study, a series of usability tests, and interviews with users. Within the framework of the study, we formed 3 assessment systems:

• The Daily Banking assessment system shows how fully and conveniently the mobile bank solves the client’s daily management tasks for managing money on the card.
• The Digital Office assessment system reflects the completeness of the solutions in the mobile bank for clients' tasks that require contacting a bank office or call center.
• Ecosystem Core assessment system values the ability of mobile banking apps to meet the needs of clients and offer them benefits.

The results of the study include a public metric for assessing the effectiveness of mobile banks for individuals, a description of the changes that have occurred in the market, a prediction for future development, and 250+ best practices for implementing user tasks in mobile banks.

The study results give insights into how to become the main bank for payments, and proactively offer the client relevant products and services. The full report includes:

• public performance ratings,
• changes and trends overview that gives an idea of ​​market development,
• best practices database which contains 250+ solutions for various user tasks,
• maps of trends and best practices help to bring mobile banks for individuals to a new level,
• usability testing insights that are useful to understand clients’ needs.

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