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The Pursuit of Product ExcellenceHow incumbent UK bank apps are failing to seize the mobile opportunity.

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At The App Business (TAB), we believe 2016 is an inflection point for UK banks. Shifts in the regulatory environment, challenging economic conditions, elevated customer expectations, new sources of competition - not to mention the relentless march of technology - are all combining to threaten the banking status quo.

Say goodbye to the status quo

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© The App Business

This unique moment in time for retail banks has been a key area of focus for our strategists at TAB of late.*

The product of recent research and thinking, we developed the Strategic Mobility Framework shown right to identify the six key areas we believe retail banks must prioritise in order to seize the opportunities on offer.

In this short deck, we take a closer look at one particular part of the framework - product excellence - and ask: which of the UK’s Big Six high street banks** are achieving mobile product excellence, right now, with their existing apps?

RIGHT: TAB’s Strategic Mobility Framework * To learn more about our point of view on the future of retail banking, head over to our blog at www.theappbusiness.com ** The Big Six includes HSBC, Barclays, Halifax, Santander, Natwest and Lloyds.

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MULTI-CHANNELEXPERIENCES

A seamless, single customer view driving greater business intelligence.

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UNTETHEREDTEAMS

More productive staff, empowered by mobile tools and enablement.

4

RESPONSIVESYSTEMS

A service-based technology approach, with scalability baked-in.

5

STREAMLINEDOPERATIONS

Smarter, simpler processes powered by automation and self-service.

6

BUSINESSAGILITY

An embedded ability to adapt and respond to high-speed change.

1

PRODUCTEXCELLENCE

A product vision for the mobility era,built on clear customer outcomes.

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When you think about it, the core ‘jobs’ people hire banks to do have stayed pretty consistent. People want easy access to their account details, the ability to action fast debits and transactions, as well as access to meaningful advice on how banks can help them get the most from their money.

The real problem is that our expectations and demand for faster, easier ways to achieve those jobs, or desired outcomes, have risen dramatically - and the way banks help fulfil them simply hasn’t kept pace.

Today, we expect to access essential services - from the weather, to ordering food or an Uber (shown in the background here) - anytime and anywhere. You might think that banks have already answered that need. The Big Six, for example, all have apps - so surely, banks have kept pace with customer expectations?

At The App Business, we disagree.

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© The App Business

We invited a group of forty banking customers to join us at TAB HQ for a series of impromptu, ‘guerilla’ testing workshops.

We identified nine simple, everyday banking tasks to test how well the apps help customers achieve their desired outcomes. These included, for example, paying someone back, understanding spending habits and trying to open a savings account.

We asked our users to complete these tasks, allowing us to test how well existing apps from the Big Six helped customers achieve their desired outcomes - outcomes which, as discussed, really haven't changed that much over the years.

Time to get testing

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© The App Business

The unsurprising news was that far from creating a seamless customer experience, most existing banking apps still required lots of manual manipulation on the part of the customer.

The result was that our nine simple, everyday tasks (four of which are highlighted, right) became laborious, frustrating mobile experiences. Here’s a good example: one of the apps in question currently lacks an automated way to track and compare a customer’s monthly spend. Instead, users are required to manually add their spending each month, in order to compare with the previous.

Today, customers expect far smarter solutions, with information served up automatically - think of Google Now, for example. That means an app itself isn’t enough: to be really valuable to customers, it must help them get a job done - like compare their monthly spend - better.

In your app… Find out how much you have, free to spend, until payday.

I want to know how much money I really have.

I want to pay someone back.

In your app… You owe the person to your left £1. Pay them back.

I want to track my spending.

In your app… Find out how much money you spent this month.

I want to understand my spending habits

In your app… Find out what you spend the majority of your money on.

CUSTOMER DESIRED OUTCOME WORKSHOP TASK

RIGHT: Four example tasks users were asked to complete as part of our testing workshops.

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Our workshop results highlighted there’s little to differentiate existing mobile banking experiences amongst the Big Six.

No single banking app was able to perform consistently well across all tasks in relation to usability, simplicity and flow. Most experiences were like a rollercoaster: filled with highs, but also notable lows - as shown by the graph on the right.

Interestingly, with the exception of a few tasks, most bank apps followed the same performance pattern. This suggests that the customer pain point in each app occurs at the same point, for the same task. Although some apps might be better than others at helping customers ‘save for something big’, they fail to satisfy in other areas including paying someone with ease, or conveying visibility of products and services.

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Same-same, and not so different

NINE BANKING TASKS

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RIGHT: The graph opposite maps the user experience across the existing Big Six apps against our nine workshop tasks.

© The App Business

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Let’s zoom in on number eight of our nine everyday banking tasks (see highlighted area, right): I want to understand my financial products and services.

Why is this outcome important? Well, with the introduction of the Open Banking Framework, a bank’s data and the details of its services will become move easily comparable. That means this information will become more visible - whether a bank is ready or not. Addressing this now allows a bank to get ahead, and turn it to their advantage.

To test how well existing apps currently provide this transparency, we asked users to find their account plan details within their apps. This includes interest rates, rewards and fees.

“I want to understand my financial products and services.”

NINE BANKING TASKS

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© The App Business

No banking app provided a clear, transparent view of the banking products and services available via mobile

“I can’t see how much interest I’m paying

on my loan.”

“Thought this would be easy, but after 10 minutes I still can’t

find anything.”

“I have no idea how many rewards points I have and what

I can get with them.”

“I’ve no idea what my yearly tax-free allowance is on my ISA.

I can’t find this in-app.”

“There’s no info on how much I’m paying for home insurance

anywhere in the app.”

“I can’t find out how much interest I’m getting from my

savings account.”

Across all six existing apps, our workshops highlighted this particular desired outcome consistently received a poor rating. From not being able to see how many reward points they had accumulated, to how much interest they pay on a loan, the

in-app experience failed to help customers achieve their desired outcome.

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These ‘gaps’ in the customer experience represent underserved and untapped opportunities, as indicated right.

So, while the results of our workshops highlighted lots of challenges in existing mobile banking products, what that really means is that there are lots opportunities banks could be taking immediate advantage of.

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AREA OF OPPORTUNITY

Underperformance presents a clear set of quick wins

NINE BANKING TASKS

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© The App Business

The Open Banking Framework creates considerable new opportunities for retail banks to exploit. What if, for example, a single mobile product aggregated a user’s financial information across all providers?

Transparency and visibility across all your live accounts, from multiple

banks, in a single view.

Seamlessly apply for new products, without leaving the app or filling in

lengthy repetitive forms.

At-a-glance account summaries, detailed statements and payment

options in one place.

Looking beyond the quick wins

© The App Business

© The App Business

Such an app would make it easy for customers to manage each of their bank accounts with a simple, informative overview of their finances.

The bank itself becomes a platform, allowing providers to push new products and services based on data that tracks user spending and saving habits. Furthermore, this could open doors for even greater opportunities - including targeted cross-selling - through a flawless user experience.

© The App Business

In this short deck, we don’t pretend to have all the answers: what we highlight is how, by focusing on customers’ desired outcomes, existing mobile banking apps can still achieve much greater product excellence and in turn, unlock even greater value - for customers, and banks.

We believe it’s high time retail banks reclaimed the initiative. After all, retail banks have a major advantage to exploit: their apps sit on millions of user devices across the UK. Now imagine if one of those apps delivered a truly category-defining experience…

To help our clients do just that, we are experimenting with new technology, building voice-enabled banking experiences and helping ambitious banks, like ING, build a deeper understanding of high value customer outcomes.

RIGHT: Recent TAB mobile banking prototype.

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© The App Business

To learn more about our recent banking app review, and to see our latest demos in action, get in touch.

— enquiries@theappbusiness.com

+44 203 657 9785

The App Business | The Spitfire Building, 71 Collier Street, London N1 9BE | www.theappbusiness.com

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