What Makes Aussie Bank Apps So Much Better?

Australian consumers have become so used to mobile banking apps that utilizing them is like using a human limb or appendage.

According to Forrester’s Consumer Asia Pacific Survey 2023, 76% of Australian millennials and 69% of Gen Zs expect to be able to accomplish any financial task through a mobile app, while the average for all demographics is 52%.

The Australian market is dominated by what is commonly referred to as the Big Four banks: ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac. The scale of their businesses has meant that they have been able to make significant investments into their apps over some years now.

The result is that Australian consumers enjoy some of the best banking apps on the planet, which is why a recent review by analyst house Forrester also has some global relevance.

The Forrester Digital Experience Review, published in October, is the work of five analysts who sought to identify the market leaders in functionality and user experience and share best practice lessons for UX professionals everywhere.

They looked at the apps of the Big Four and also other providers such as investment bank and wealth manager Macquarie.

Forrester scored the apps across 26 functionality and 25 user experience criteria and asked several questions against which the apps were rated.

Beyond basic account info, did the app help customers understand their finances and act when appropriate?

Can the customer send money, pay bills and manage transactions? Are there customer service tools that don’t require contact with a bank representative, and is there the ability to contact a representative?

Regarding the user experience, the criteria were around navigation, search, content, and workflow. Another UX criterion was whether the app helped customers avoid or recover from errors.

Westpac, the winner

The result was that Westpac was the overall digital experience winner, “offering a mobile app with exceptional UX and comprehensive functionality.”

So, what was so good about the Westpac app, which was fully redesigned in 2021?

According to Forrester, the Westpac app offers “stellar UX, especially in the search and navigation and error avoidance and recovery categories.”

“Westpac also offers several unique in-app features such as the ability to request payments from peers, split group payments and add billers by scanning a bill,” the Forrester report says.

“To ensure that new features deliver value, banks must improve them by anticipating customer needs and applying a rigorous design process.”

The CBA and Macquarie apps were also cited as delivering best practices in their capability to allow users to personalize their account views by choosing and prioritizing banking modules.

All provide a 'cash flow' view on the home screen, showing income and expenses. At the same time, the CBA app allows customers to set up alerts for incoming and outgoing transactions.

Macquarie’s natural language search tool pulls relevant content directly into search results.

The apps each had their own individual innovations, which were noted by the analysts.

The CBA’s BillSense feature, for example, uses past payments to predict potential upcoming bill and subscription payments.

The Macquarie app uses geolocation and behavioral data to serve relevant in-context content to customers traveling overseas, such as current conversation rates, travel insurance, and international support.

The Forrester verdict is that while many of these apps have exciting new features, “there’s room for improvement”.

“Banks need to better help customers manage their finances—one of three financial challenges most often cited by Australians,” the report says.

“While the apps of some banks, such as CBA, provide advanced budgeting and smart savings tools, most either don’t have this feature at all or don’t make it an integral part of the mobile banking experience.

“To ensure that new features deliver value, banks must improve them by anticipating customer needs and applying a rigorous design process.”

Five principles

Forrester concludes its analysis with five "best in class" examples, which others can use as guiding principles in app design.

The first is to “help customers find and make sense of transactions.”

“Finding and viewing transactions is a top task for mobile banking, yet some Australian banks make this task difficult for users due to poor transaction search or limited details,” the report says.

Secondly, the apps should “help customers achieve financial well-being.” This is where the Australian banks scored worst, according to the Forrester analysis.

Thirdly, automation should be used to “reduce cognitive load.”

“Forrester predicts that mobile experiences will shift from self-service to anticipatory experiences, valuable services that a brand provides automatically,” the report says.

“In banking, this is already happening with autonomous finance: algorithm-driven services that make financial decisions or act to ease a given customer burden and help them make smart decisions.”

The following principle is to "offer contextual help to avoid or recover from errors."

“Most banks provide helpful assistance to users, but few do it without interfering with the user task flow.

"Leading banks implement contextual help in their mobile apps—such as inline instructions, tooltips, tutorials, and embedded help centers—to support users when they need it most without interfering with their task."

The final principle is to “proactively protect customers from fraud, cybercrime and privacy abuses.”

“Financial services firms must improve their data protection and privacy management. This means building cybersecurity and privacy capabilities directly into mobile banking apps.”

In this context, it is worth noting that last week, the CBA switched on its 'scam indicator,' developed in partnership with Quantium Telstra.

The feature uses algorithms to spot potential scam phone calls in real time by matching two sets of data to identify when a customer was simultaneously on the phone and attempting to transfer funds, suggesting they may be in the process of being scammed.

The initiative underlines one of the main themes of the Forrester analysis.

Australian banking apps might be good, but they can be better, and improvement is ongoing.

Best practice? Are we there yet? Not quite.

Lachlan Colquhoun is the Australia and New Zealand correspondent for CDOTrends and the NextGenConnectivity editor. He remains fascinated with how businesses reinvent themselves through digital technology to solve existing issues and change their business models. You can reach him at [email protected]. 

Image credit: iStockphoto/CandyRetriever