How to go beyond the mobile app during the transition to digital banking

Millions of traditional banking customers have adopted mobile technology to their daily banking experience, using smartphones, tablets and laptop computers to perform everything from checking balances to transferring funds between accounts and putting a halt on fraudulent transactions.

But digital banking requires a lot more work than just downloading a mobile app and magically transforming the business models of centuries old banking institutions.

Daniel Latimore, chief research officer at Celent, said the banking industry has evolved over the years in how they approach the use of mobile technology. A few experts in digital banking and customer experience design discussed the complexities of incorporating mobile banking applications into the user experience at the Bank Customer Service Summit at the Leows Chicago Hotel and sat down with Mobile Payments Today to explain the evolution of how the industry has changed.

"For those who are using an app, it's gone through some stages of evolution as it's gotten more sophisticated, and banking has learned from other industries," he said in an interview with Mobile Payments Today. "Initially, banks were trying to off load some of the high cost, low value add transactions onto the app."

For example, banks early on moved much of the ability to check balances onto the smartphone, however, now more banks have added account onboarding functionality and the killer application of enabling remote deposits onto the mobile app.

He cited Bank of America's virtual assistant, which it calls Erica, as an example of a legacy bank incorporating mobile technology to successfully transition many customer service functions into the digital space. The bank in May announced that Erica, which uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to help guide customers through the process, had completed more than 50 million client requests in its first year and also has 7 million customers using the platform.

"When you think about the overall experience, that is where you run into limitations of legacy systems, but becoming familiar with newer APIs that can sit on top of legacy systems is crucial," Andy Vitale, head of user experience design at SunTrust Bank, told Mobile Payments Today. "Again, it goes back to bringing the customer into the design process and understanding what's important to them and their pain points so you can prioritize what to work on."

Vitale said that while you can't expect apps to completely remove friction from the process, the best apps are seamless and almost invisible to the user.

"The only way to understand what people perceive to be intuitive or efficient is to bring them to the center of the design process and involve them in testing, validating solutions and provide constant feedback," he said.

"The advantage we have over an established financial institution is that we're kind of building in a vacuum," Lamine Zarrad, founder and CEO at Joust, told Mobile Payments Today in an interview.

"(That) we're kind of building from the ground up is probably a better way of putting it versus building on top of a legacy system," he said.

Zarrad said most legacy banks are building apps on top of systems that were built for a website on top of a system that used tellers. So without the ability to rip out the system and start from a mobile first environment, banks are going to be essentially stacking a digital-first user experience on top of a system that was never built for that type of interaction.

Joust is a fintech that is designed specifically for freelancers and startup businesses where customers can get advance funding from Joust based on their invoices, a business that really does not have a direct equivalent in traditional banking.

Cover image courtesy of Networld Media Group.