How to Improve Your Bank's Mobile App

Leading U.S. and Canadian banks have upped their mobile banking game in recent years, and some stand out for individual aspects of their apps. But in spite of those efforts, a Forrester report says that the banks aren’t yet keeping pace with what consumers want — and demand.

“Despite leading banks’ best practices, the market overall is rife with mediocrity,” says the report.

The report gets more specific: “The market as a whole tends toward the sufficient rather than the magnificent. The average overall score across North America is 69 (out of 100). This parallels consumers’ view of bank brands as reliable but largely undifferentiated — and mediocrity inhibits future growth.” [Emphasis added.]

The study looked at a cross section of major North American institutions to get a read on mobile banking progress. In the U.S., the study covered consumer mobile offerings from Bank of America, U.S. Bank, USAA and Wells Fargo. In Canada, the research looked at offerings from CIBC, Scotiabank and TD Canada Trust, as well as ATB Financial. The latter is an insured financial services provider owned and operated by the country’s Alberta province.

Mobile Banking’s Bar Keeps Getting Raised

In an interview with The Financial Brand, Peter Wannemacher, principal analyst, digital banking for Forrester, points out that between 2020 and 2024 consumers began doing much more via mobile banking — starting with Covid isolation — and they began expecting more from their providers. Features that would have put an institution on top in 2017 are just table stakes now, he explains.

The eight institutions selected were intended as a proxy for major institution mobile offerings. It’s not that they aren’t improving; the bar just keeps getting higher and higher.

Wannemacher notes that U.S. Bank’s app had come in next to last in the consulting firm’s 2016 version of the study, but now the firm considers the bank’s app is the best in North America, citing its efforts to remove barriers for customers.

In second, Bank of America got kudos for providing “an increasingly invisible and immersive experience.” The bank’s Erica virtual assistant and its extensive use of dashboards that can be customized drew praise. In third place, USAA got points for a broad range of helpful functions.

Wannemacher discussed how banks of all sizes can better match consumers’ needs and expectations as apps move forward.

Behind the challenge: 65% of U.S. online consumers surveyed, and 62% of Canadians, insist that “I should be able to accomplish any financial task through a mobile app.”

They aren’t there yet.

Banks Must Adopt ‘Jobs To Be Done’ Product Thinking

Forrester’s report picks up on a concept originated by innovation expert Clayton Christensen, the “jobs to be done” framework. This holds that consumers select products and services not because of what they are, but what they enable them to accomplish.

“Everyone has ‘jobs to be done’ in their lives — the progress they’re trying to make as they strive toward a goal or aspiration within particular circumstances,” according to the Christensen Institute.

The upshot for mobile banking is to keep focused on consumers’ utilitarian needs. They may use other types of apps because of the pleasure they bring — viewing movies on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, for example. Wannemacher points out that even a quasi-financial app like Redfin can be fun for people who browse for home ideas.

But there’s nothing fun about a banking app — the point is to accomplish something, from paying a friend to checking a balance, and be done with it. Understanding this helps identify realistic friction and pain points, which should guide app designers to what needs fixing or rethinking, according to Wannemacher.

Here’s the rub: The “it” in “done with it” keeps getting wider and deeper.

“The breadth of what money movement needs to be today is broader than it used to be,” Wannemacher points out by way of example.

Forrester has found that ‘jobs to be done’ thinking is catching on among heads of banks’ digital development.

One example is Wells Fargo’s quick updates on its mobile app home of consumers’ credit scores. That step “reduces the friction typical of credit monitoring functions that send the user to a separate app or site.” The report also held up BofA’s Erica for not only bringing the customer to the right choice for moving money, but for starting the setup of the payment there.

This way of thinking may also suggest new features that a bank’s current app doesn’t touch at all. Forrester’s report notes that few banks’ offerings provide tools for credit building and debt management. Fintechs jumped into those functions early on and many banks still need to do so from within their apps.

Read more:

Three Places to Beef Up Your Bank’s Mobile App

Asked how banking institutions further down the industry roster than the big banks studied could improve their apps, Wannemacher said they should focus on three facets: search capability, notifications and alerts, and in-app support.

“Focusing on those three will bring you out of mediocrity,” says Wannemacher.

Improving search functions within the bank’s app will take some investment. “You often have to buy some new functionality,” Wannemacher says. There are vendors who can provide capabilities such as predictive search — when you begin entering what you need and the software starts making suggestions — on up to conversational agents that can be asked to find something.

“Conversational agents weren’t ready for primetime four or five years ago, but if you’re a good-size bank you can offer a good conversational experience today,” says Wannemacher.

Wannemacher warns that improving search isn’t as simple as throwing money at the challenge — the institution must clearly understand what’s lacking in its current technology.

“It is a forgone conclusion that improving search experiences means the technology that you use will have some artificial intelligence components in it,” Wannemacher says. However, he says, he is not including GenAI in this, but rather AI technology like natural language processing capabilities.

“Let me put it this way: You certainly don’t need GenAI as of 2024 nor even into 2025 to do great search today,” Wannemacher says. In fact, he adds, “It’s not yet clear when GenAI will be ready to expose to mainstream banking customers inside bank-owned digital experiences.”

In the area of notifications and alerts, Wannemacher believes more attention must be paid to personalization, based on past behavior, as well as streamlining to “take the cognitive load off” the consumer user. He points out that the BMO mobile app gives consumers the option of clicking a single button to see the alerts that are most relevant to them. This degree of personalization is relatively easy to set up, adds Wannemacher.

“There’s really not much stopping midsize and smaller institutions from enabling that kind of thing,” Wannemacher says.

When it comes to in-app support, the study cites U.S. Bank as the best practices example. Among the support features that U.S. Bank provides are an in-app hub for managing security functions, including a personalized security rating. In addition, the bank provides tools for managing mobile banking privacy. The study found that 28% of Americans and 30% of Canadians have avoided using their mobile banking app out of concerns about their data.