When was the last time you updated your passbook/bankbook? If you are a millennial, chances are you’re not even aware of its existence. A report by eMarketer shows that by 2022, almost 78% of the US millennial population will become digital banking users, driving the change in the banking industry with their willingness to use feature-rich mobile applications.
A Federal Reserve report shows that millennials’ mobile banking usage is not close to 70% compared to 18% of senior citizens (aged over 60). You could read more such facts about banking mobile applications here.
That is one of the significant reasons behind mobile banking experiencing the shift of focus from a range of solutions and cost considerations to more personalization and rewarding user experience. Also, mobile banking is a more preferred option than e-banking websites, as it offers the ease and flexibility of native user experience and available on the move!
Catering to the banking and financial industry’s niche requirements, mobile application developers should consider a few pillars of guidelines and attributes while developing a mobile banking app. 8 of such attributes are discussed below:
Security:
Security is vital in every industry; however, its importance is multi-folds in the banking and finance industry because of data confidentiality. As per a Pew Research Center report, only 52% of American adults use two-factor authentication, and a quarter uses simple passwords as they feel they might forget the complex ones!
Therefore, it becomes the developer’s responsibility to consider end-users data security, even if they are unaware of its need. Security holds even more value than usability to some extent in the banking and financial world.
User Experience:
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, user experience is one of the main reasons driving the digital transformation in the banking and financial industry. Hence, interface design quality, testing the product for end-user perception and user experience, are significant for customer satisfaction.
Performing usability tests before the launch and conducting a UX interview with your ideal customers can help you identify the problem or possible inconveniences in your mobile application.
Stability and Performance:
Banking applications operate with vast amounts of data, given the nature of the industry. This makes data processing an essential feature in app development. If the application couldn’t process the data as expected, the users will certainly not appreciate the app and might even switch!
Mentioned below are some of the main ways to check app performance:
● Spike Testing: Spike testing is a type of performance testing in which an application receives a sudden and extreme increase or decrease in load. The goal is to determine the behavior of a software application when it receives extreme variations in traffic.
● Stress Testing: During stress testing, the system is monitored after subjecting the system to overload to ensure that it can sustain the stress.
● Load Testing: A load test is a type of software testing conducted to understand the application’s behavior under a specific expected load. Load testing is performed to determine a system’s behavior under both familiar and at peak conditions.
● Soak Testing: Soak testing involves testing a system with a typical production load, over a continuous availability period, to validate system behavior under production use.
Future Proof:
The ever-changing tech world and user preferences, security, and technical requirements drafted even a couple of months ago can go futile and outdated. That is also one of the main reasons for the increasing numbers of security breaches around the world.
Hence, banking organizations need to follow the market trends in terms of security measures, accessibility, convenience, and functionality to stay relevant in their target market.
Personalized:
Banking consumers require personalization in their application and hence welcome user experience improvements. Thus, banking institutions need to continuously find ways to receive information about their user preference through primary and secondary research and inculcate meaningful personalization features in the application.
Transaction and Personal Data Security:
As mentioned above, the security breaches are increasing by the day in the banking sector, making the safety of confidential information such as the user’s bank account and related data, the number one priority for banking applications. Any existing or potential security vulnerabilities may cause financial damages and significantly hamper the banking and financial institutions’ reputation if discovered by hackers.
To ensure the safety and security of the applications, the following steps could be taken:
- Installing a two-way authentication system
- Encryption of transmitted and stored data
- Usage of QR codes for the transactions
- Using OTP on the registered number for the transactions, etc.
Competitively Differentiated:
The increasing numbers of banking and finance players in the industry result in a decrease in brand loyalty, making it challenging for the companies to maintain their user base. Making their applications competitively advanced could help them in achieving their goals.
The companies should focus on inculcating all the features available in their competition’s app with some standout features to attract new users and retain the existing customers. Features like ATM Locator, Expenditure tracking tools, Investment management, Bill Payment and Management, etc. could help them stand out from the competition.
Support:
Your banking application should not only be supported technically but for banking related issues as well. Support channels could be provided in the form of sending an email, requesting a callback, direct contact with customer care teams, or live chats to resolve any query.
Missing out on this crucial feature or making its accessibility difficult could leave your customers frustrated, which might result badly in the form of bad reviews or venting their frustrations on the support team via different channels.
Building an app for the banking and finance industry is a time-consuming process, as a lot of research and analysis goes behind finalizing the fundamental and standout features.
These eight app development pillars can serve as a great starting point to brainstorm and build a secure and competitively advanced application.
If you would like to get further details, we would love to have a conversation over a cup of coffee. Get in touch with us today.
