Australian banks behind the curve in mobile experiences: study

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Banks in Australia and New Zealand are lagging behind when it comes to providing “frictionless mobile experiences” for wealth management products.

Banks in Australia and New Zealand are lagging behind when it comes to providing “frictionless mobile experiences” for wealth management products, according to a new study by Avoka.

The study, conducted in December, 2015, examined the digital application experiences of ten leading Australian and ten US retail financial services companies.

Derek Corcoran, Chief Experience Officer at Avoka, said that an omni-channel approach and instant, mobile-friendly experiences give the banks an opportunity to “be where the customers are”.

“ANZ [banks] excel in offering customers the ability to apply for wealth management products online but are slightly behind the industry average regarding mobile experiences for wealth products,” Corcoran said.

“When you look at the data, Australia is doing really well, particularly when we compare it to the US, but we are still in the situation where the number of personal banking products that offer mobile-friendly experiences is 37 per cent, so there is a lot of work still to be done.”

On Monday, National Australia Bank (NAB) unveiled a new mobile payments service on Android devices – called NAB Pay – in a bid to provide customers with “simple and easy” digital payment solutions.

NAB Executive General Manager for Consumer Lending, Angus Gilfillan, said customers were driving the agenda when it came to frictionless mobile experiences, with NAB’s 10-year partnership with Visa allowing the bank to now tap into Visa’s tokenisation security service for its digital payments.

“We are excited to launch our digital wallet and enable customers to make fast and safe purchases with their mobile phone,” Gilfillan said.

“Tokenisation improves protection for customers because physical card details are never used in the payments process, reducing the risk of fraud.”

According to Avoka’s study, NAB emerged as the top bank for the highest percentage products accessible via mobile (at 41 per cent) and was among the top 3 for the mobile responsiveness of its applications (joined by Westpac and ANZ, all at 41 per cent).

The findings also showed that across all lines of business, 49 per cent of Australian products can be applied for online as opposed to 39 per cent of products in the US market.

Corcoran said that banks have made significant investments in digital self-service for their mobile banking and online banking offerings over the last few years to provide “digitally powerful experiences” and this will remain a key focus in the coming months.

“As we highlighted in the research, there is still quite a bit of work to be done to make the digital banking sales experience and the ability to apply for any product available … absolutely seamless,” he said.