OBSERVATIONS FROM THE FINTECH SNARK TANK

In a recent study of US consumers, Cornerstone Advisors found that Americans now consider the quality of digital banking tools to be a more important factor in their decision of who to bank with than branch locations, the quality of the branch experience, or even what interest rate a bank pays on deposits and savings.

So who’s got the best mobile banking app?

It’s not an easy question to answer, but an analysis by Minna Technologies, a Sweden-based fintech which provides banks with subscription management capabilities, sheds some light on the question.

Minna evaluated the mobile banking apps of 24 large banks and fintechs, identifying 30 mobile banking features (not including basic features like checking account balances, transferring funds between accounts, etc.) in five categories: payments, expense management, savings and investments, customer support, and security.

The Biggest Banks Have the “Best” Apps

If you accept the idea that the provider with the most features has the best mobile banking app, then the crown goes to JPMorgan Chase whose app has 24 features. Citi was a close second with 23 features, followed by Capital One and Bank of America with 22 of the 30 features.

What do the leaders have in their mobile banking apps that other banks and fintechs don’t? Five features tended to differentiate these banks including:

  • Disposable virtual cards. Just three providers—Citi, Capital One, and Chime—give their customers the ability to create disposable virtual cards
  • Credit card transaction disputes. Chase, Citi, and Regions Bank give their customers the ability to dispute credit card transactions directly from the mobile app.
  • Recurring bills, subscriptions, and memberships. Generally speaking, subscription management is a set of capabilities missing from practically every bank’s and fintech’s mobile banking app. Capital One, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and Varo Bank, however, give customers the ability to view recurring bills, subscriptions, and memberships in the mobile banking app.
  • AI chatbot support. Just two banks—Chase and Capital One—provide an AI chatbot within their mobile banking app. That’s gotta change. As I wrote here, chatbots will become ubiquitous in banks because of the need for speed, data, and personalization.
  • Fully digital account opening. It’s hard to believe that it’s 2022 and only nine of the 24 mobile banking apps reviewed have fully digital account opening. It’s also surprising that neither Chase nor Bank of America were among the nine banks/fintechs providing this.

Six Lessons From This Mobile Banking App Assessment

The leaders will brag about their ranking and others will dispute the methodology, but regardless of who’s ranked where there are important takeaways here for bank and credit union executives: