How to make an Engaging Banking App

The Mobile Strategy

The mobile industry is booming, as more and more activities are being carried out on the mobile phone. In fact, as noted some time earlier, smartphones now are not only communication devices (used for texting and calling only). Rather, they are more like mini computers and personal assistants that are indispensable in our every day lives.

Mobile phones nowadays are not only communication devices, but more like mini computers and personal assistants.

That is why more and more businesses (irrespective of their size and industry) are seeing the benefits of having a mobile application of their own. However, having an app is not enough to win. Here are some facts to consider:

• Most people use only 6 to 10 apps each week
• Only 3.3% of Android apps and 3.2% of iOS apps still have active users after 30 days when being downloaded

Keeping your Mobile Users

Therefore, the obvious question here is how to get people to download, and more importantly - keep using your app after the initial installation? This is even more significant when speaking about the financial services, as here many people still tend to stick with the common means of dealing with their finances.

Irrespective of the industry, there are two core metrics with regards to mobile apps:

• Mobile app engagement. This refers to how active users are on the app (basically, here we can speak about user sessions per month).
• Mobile app retention. This metric focuses on the percentage of app users who return to the app (for instance, how many users return within 3 months after their first session).

Put together, these two metrics define the app's stickiness, or how engaged and loyal users are for a specif app. To make your app sticky, it needs to keep users engaged and it must ensure repeat usage. In order to do so, app functionality and experience has to connect with people's intent and mobile behavior.

Mobile app engagement and mobile app retention define your app's stickiness.

The Micro-Moments

It is important to stress that the ultimate goal of every app is to help people take action in their immediate moments of need. As stated by Google, these are the micro-moments, which essentially have to address customers' needs with the real-time relevance. As Google points out, there are 3 core strategies that compile this:

• Be There. You have got to anticipate the micro-moments for users in your industry and then commit to being there to help when those moments occur.
• Be Useful. You have got to be relevant to consumers' needs in the moment and connect people to the answers they are looking for.
• Be Quick. They are called micro-moments for a reason. Mobile users want to know, go, and buy swiftly. Your mobile experience has to be fast and frictionless.

Thus, in order to increase the mobile app engagement, one must begin with these micro-moments. We have to stress that being useful is probably the most critical point here. You need to be useful and meet your users' expectations and needs in critical moments. This basically means connecting people to what they are looking for in real time and providing relevant information when they need it.

Being useful is the critical point when speaking about the micro-moments.

Bringing it to the Banking

Taking the micro-moments seriously and focusing on the customer is by far the best strategy for your mobile app success. There is obviously no one-size-fits-all approach, but having the points outlined above in mind, some of the current players in the financial sector are doing pretty good job.

Taking the micro-moments seriously and focusing on the customer is by far the best strategy for your mobile app success.

Push Notifications

Some of the Britain's best-known challenger banks had technical problems earlier this year in March. Instead of staying silent, Monzo, for instance, sent an update to every user's app in the morning, followed by a push notification to every customer's smartphone, and an hourly status updates for those following the problem. Obviously, the customers were very positive with this approach.

Chatbots

In order to take frequent questions and reduce the customer support load, Revolut, another challenger bank from the UK, has introduced a chatbot called Rita. Although chatbots as such are still in the development phase, for some simple and basic questions (that you would normally approach Customer Services or browse the Web) they are a pretty neat solution. Thus, Revolut's customer now can ask Rita where they can use their Revolut card, or, for instance, what is the current GBP/USD exchange rate. More comprehensive questions are redirect to human-managed support.

Split

Splitting the bill with your friends used to be the pain in the ass, especially when paying with a payment card or a mobile device. However, enormously popular P2P payments platform Venmo and other financial sector incumbents understood the need for such functionality, and now it definitely drives their mobile app engagement and retention. And these, as stressed before, are the essential building blocks.

Being Useful

The earlier examples were from the financial sector start-ups. Nevertheless, high street banks are also taking the mobile shift seriously and have quite useful apps of their own. For example, Swedbank, the Swedish commercial bank, allows you to check your balance in every account you have with the bank instantly, without even logging into one. In addition to that, you can block/unblock your payment cards (even the NFC functionality), change your limits, as well as make fast transfers. These are very similar functions that most of the challenger banks currently offer. But taking the large user base that most of the mainstream banks have into account, the introduction of the following features definitely have a potential to make their customers more mobile.

Bringing it all together

The presented features above are only several out of many success stories that players in the financial sector can follow. Obviously, in order to succeed in the mobile world, one should focus on the mobile app engagement and retention. And the most important point to stress is that you have to be useful. Otherwise, there is no point in doing. Anything.