A Guide to Mobile Banking App Development

More and more people are using smartphones for availing of various banking services. The expected number of smartphone users is set to exceed 2.3 billion users by 2022, as found in Statista.

It is not sufficient to have a banking website for your organization. Mobile banking offers a flexible and convenient way for bank consumers, targeting all those willing to carry out financial transactions anywhere and anytime and beyond the regular banking hours.

As per a 2018 survey by Statista, 90 percent of respondents use banking apps for a view of their account balance. The number of mobile banking users in the US alone is 57 million.

The banking apps provide a whole lot of benefits. In this post, we will discuss all the benefits of a mobile banking app.

Benefits of Mobile Banking App

Some of the benefits of a banking app are:

Enhanced Security

Security is a critical concern for both online and mobile banking. However, mobile banking can be made secure with security at the hardware level.

Other than the traditional use of passwords and two-factor authentication on mobile devices, there are other ways to achieve an increase in security solutions of the likes of biometrics in the form of fingerprints and gesture patterns.

Increase in Return on Investment (ROI)

Mobile banking users happen to be the most valuable client for any financial institution. It is crucial to improve mobile banking app usage and ROI. The mobile app developed must target the right audience at the right time.

An increase in mobile banking adoption rates generates revenue. Mobile banking customers have higher engagement and hold more customer products when compared with other customers, visiting the branches.

Moreover, the attrition rates of customers using mobile banking are far lesser than the branch only customers. Mobile banking customers generate higher revenue in comparison with branch-only customers.

You need to adopt the right app strategies to increase the ROI from your mobile banking app. Some of these strategies will be targeting the right audiences, competition analysis, app marketing pre-launch, reaching out to the target audience with social media, and many others.

Lower Expenses

As per a report from Deloitte, the cost of conducting mobile transactions will get lowered by 50%, when compared with the cost incurred for transactions in branches and 10 % when compared with the cost for ATM transactions.  

Mobile bankings always help financial institutions in considerable savings.

It saves money on printing and delivery and reduces the need for any additional workers. It saves the operational costs for running the branches.

Render Better Customer Experience

Just like any other business, a mobile banking app must offer a positive customer experience. You can render a better customer experience, resorting to the following ways.

Personalized experiences catered to the customers is of paramount importance for the banking apps. It evokes trust in the minds of clients. It provides round-the-clock services – anywhere, anytime.

The focus must be on data and analytics for measuring consumer interactions with apps. You can truly cater to individual experiences with Artificial Intelligence. The personalized experiences based on behavior and needs provide opportunities for improved engagement and customer experience.

Moreover, personalized experiences provide instant gratification for mobile apps, and that builds loyal customers for your financial institution. Finally, mobile banking offers enhanced control over your finances.  

Gather Analytics

The mobile apps offer actionable insights with three key metrics. These metrics are user engagement, acquisition & performance, and customer satisfaction.

The banks focus on various parameters such as session intervals, abandonment rates, churn rate, retention rate, and active users for judging user engagement.

You can track the number of downloads and their origin with the acquisition metrics. It helps to understand the successful campaigns. On the other hand, the performance metrics determine abandonment rates and higher churns. Slow loading or crashes constitute of performances related issues for the banking apps.

Apply Artificial Intelligence

Mobile banking may offer round-the-clock services for its customers, but customer support remains an issue. Banks around the world are adopting Artificial Intelligence for reducing the workload of the customer support executives.

Answering the customer queries at a massive scale is now done with the help of chatbots. It allows the customer support professionals to work on more complex issues, with simple tasks left in the hands of the chatbots.

The chatbots in mobile apps usually answer simple questions of the likes of opening and closing of bank accounts, blocking/unblocking of cards, transfer funds, or even sending account statements and many others.  

Moreover, each interaction between AI and the customer gets treated as a learning process. When the same customer interacts with your mobile app, it is geared to answer the issues in a much better way. It ensures a personalized banking experience.

Finally, the chatbots have access to all the financial transactions of a customer and understand the expenditure patterns. It sends notifications to the client for keeping a check on the expenditures.

Push and In-app Notifications

Push notifications on mobile apps act as a tool in the hands of the marketers for communicating with their customers. Push notifications to mobile banking customers with discounts and offers help to attract customers at specific touchpoints.

The in-app messages appear with the active user inside the app. User interactions trigger these messages.

The notifications enable the customers to engage with a brand through promotions, and your bank gains a higher competitive advantage over others with these notifications.

However, push, and in-app messages work best when working in combination as part of a broader mobile marketing strategy.

Now, we delve into some of the trends in mobile banking for 2020.

Trends in Mobile Banking

Here are some of the trends in mobile banking in 2020.

Additional Biometric Authentication

Security is a primary concern for mobile apps. In the future, banking apps will incorporate facial recognition software and fingerprint recognition. The passwords will replace the biometric authentication. Biometrics ensures security, enhancing efficiency and convenience.

Voice Banking

Voice commands will make inroads in mobile banking for security. It acts as an additional level for biometric authentication to access your bank accounts.

Fraud Detection with Big Data

Many of the future financial institutions will leverage the power of Big Data for identifying fraudulent activities and security threats for mobile or online banking.

Improve Customer Service with Machine Learning

It delivers personalized, real-time service with smart bots. It offers instant customer service with fast detection of the request made.

Hassle-free ATM Withdrawals

Many banks will incorporate near-field communication technologies into their ATMs for hassle-free operations and integrate apps such as Apple pay, Google Pay. You will log into your account by scanning QR codes.