Digital Banking – Vision 2024

This ranking reflects our expertise and success

Mobile banking app research

Mobile banking is a promising new direction for banking system operations worldwide. While drawing up this digital banking report, Andersen’s experts analyzed the most popular mobile banking apps, their advantages, and their disadvantages. Examining the market landscape as a whole, as well as statistics on mobile banking usage, our team scrutinized end-users and important business components.

Industry market size

With 5.3 billion mobile users worldwide, the potential of the mobile industry, in terms of its reach and innovation, is sufficient to promote further financial inclusion and build more equitable societies. As of now, every month there are over 300 million active mobile finance accounts. Not only are customers using their accounts more frequently, but they are also applying them to new and more advanced use cases. That suggests that more and more people are moving away from the margins of financial systems and living increasingly digitized lives.

Mobile banking in numbers

As more and more consumers feel uncomfortable while handling cash, many users turn to mobile finance to purchase food, clothing, and other essential products and services. That undoubtedly contributed to an upsurge in merchant e-payments. The value of mobile merchant payments grew by 47 percent compared to 28 percent last year. Transaction values also increased across the board, as more money circulated and was cashed-in and cashed-out than ever before. For the first time, the global value of daily transactions exceeded 2.5 billion dollars, and it is expected to surpass $3 billion a day by the end of 2022:

Mobile platforms

In 2020, as stated in the above online banking report, the mobile money industry reached another major milestone: the number of monthly active mobile finance accounts topped 300 million, having grown at a rate of 17 percent year on a yearly basis. 64 mobile money providers – roughly one in five – had over one million monthly active accounts. This is up from 30 providers in 2016. This strong and steady growth suggests that customers are using mobile money in more advanced ways and in all aspects of daily life. In contrast, infrequent use may imply that a user is simply a recipient of remittances and not reaping the full benefits of mobile finance. It should be emphasized that even in high-income countries with high levels of banking penetration, individuals can still be financially marginalized. With account registrations likely to plateau in the next decade, it will become even more important to understand how actively and frequently mobile money is used.

Functional limitation

According to various online banking system reports, it is imperative that banks do not develop the UI of mobile banking apps as a copy of their Internet banking sites, as the screens, displayed, network connections, and user attention levels are different from desktop/laptop usage patterns. The accessibility requirements for different age groups and differently-abled people would also be part of the future scope to facilitate the banking mobile app adoption rates.

Usability assessment

Andersen’s specialists perform usability assessments based on Nielsen's heuristics. Below you can find the principles by which the research was framed, guided, and done. You can also see the outcomes of our research activities. Improving usability means a constant journey with changing customer experiences and ongoing technology innovation. Hence, as stated in various digital banking market reports, it is recommended for banks to review their usability requirements. Better usability of mobile apps contributes to greater customer loyalty and, therefore, customer's continuous engagement with their banks.

Results

Quite often, the interface provides enough information to interact with accounts, articles, and other sections of the panel.
On the separating pages, the following problem is often identified. If some material is located too far away, one needs to search for it manually, and the outcome depends on the user's focus.
Lists and tables are built conveniently enough so that it does not make the interaction with displayed info complicated.
Functional pages need to be improved - admins need to be able to interact flexibly and customize the interface.
A common problem with storytelling is that users can get lost in the flow of information displayed by the page they interact with.

Red points

The administrator should be able to quickly adapt to the service and get all the necessary information - now this is not possible.
There should be no 'ghostly errors' - users should always understand what happens, how it happens, and how to fix the problem.
There are difficulties related to navigation and the transition logic - it is necessary to reconsider the relationship between the pages.

Accessibility

As found out during this digital banking research, mobile devices should consider the entire spectrum of disabilities, i.e. visual, hearing, physical, cognitive, age-based. The challenge of addressing all of those special needs in a device of limited size is aggravated by the breadth of functionalities enabled by mobile phones. Product designers, manufacturers, systems designers, and application developers should be aware of the entire range of user requirements while designing mobile devices and applications.

Benefits of Mobile Banking

In this mobile banking report, Andersen’s experts would like to highlight the following prominent benefits of online finance solutions:

Always on

A mobile phone is always portable due to its inherent design. It allows users to be involved in such activities as traveling and meeting people, as well as to perform transactions as long as the devices has access to the Internet.

Location-centric

Global Positioning System (GPS) can be used to recognize the phone, identify its location, and personalize available options based on the existing services. As a result, a significant advantage is ensured for eCommerce.

Convenience

Time and space do not impose insurmountable limitations on mobile users with access to e-activities. As a result, their quality of life is significantly improved. Hence, the more convenient services are, the more loyal clients are.

Customization

Mobile phones exercise greater influence than PCs. They can ensure a more personalized user experience. Therefore, mobile commerce developers are expected to design more creative and more customized lifestyle tools.

Ability identification

Mobile phones are capable of secure yet convenient and portable e-transactions impossible with PCs. Any person can always use their mobile devices. Hence, the latter are a perfect option for personalized and targeted marketing.