UX Archives - Page 2 of 2

20 Mobile Banking Landing Pages

By Jim Bruene Posted on July 3, 2014
Categories: Mobile Banking, UX, Website Usability & Design

Last week, I caught up with the USAA folk to share thoughts on the future of mobile banking. They explained how they are converting visitors on the mobile web to their native app with a popup (interstitial) prompt (see inset). It’s the first time I’ve seen a bank use that desktop technique on the mobile web.

It had been more than a year since I took a tour of major banks using my phone’s browser (Safari, iPhone 5, iOS7). The last time proved relatively uninspiring. Several banks showed a mobile-optimized view, but most defaulted to their desktop-PC view which is unusable without tedious “pinch and zooming.” And no one pushed users to the native app.

Today, that’s changed dramatically. Of the 20 major mobile banking websites I visited, only one (Citibank) delivered a desktop-PC view (and that varied depending on which URL was used to enter the Citibank site). And four of the 20 pushed their mobile app heavily (and three more showed a download link to the app store).

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Recommendations
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While there has been much talk about pushing customers to less-costly HTML5 and responsive-design mobile websites, it’s still an app world (1 million and counting on iOS alone). And that’s not changing if Apple has anything to say about it. If you have a native app, make sure your mobile customers know about it.
Every mobile web front landing page should include a prominent link (above the fold) to your native app(s). And it’s not enough to simply show the Apple and Android app store logos. That’s too subtle for many novice smartphone users.
The call-to-action should list at least one benefit to the native app. Facebook, for instance, simply says, “browser faster.”
Test an interstitial landing page such as the one currently used by USAA. Users can choose “remind me later” to defer their decision to download the app, or they can kill the interstitial permanently by choosing “no thanks.”

Table: Mobile web default view from 20 major mobile FIs
Key: Native promo = Promotes native app
Mobile web = Delivers mobile-optimized view
Pinch & Zoom = No mobile optimization on main landing page, requires pinching and zooming to navigate

	Mobile Optimized View?	Native App Call to Action?	App Store link?	Large Promo?
Native app promo
Bank of America	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Barclays (UK)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Moven	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
USAA	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mobile web
American Express	Yes	No	No	No
BB&T	Yes	No	No	No
BECU	Yes	Yes	No	No
BMO Harris	Yes	No	No	No
Capital One	Yes	No	No	Yes
Chase	Yes	No	Yes	No
Fifth Third	Yes	No	No	No
ING Direct (Turkey)	Yes	No	No	Yes
Regions	Yes*	No	No	No
Schwab	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Simple	Yes	No	No	Yes
SunTrust	Yes	No	No	No
US Bank	Yes	No	No	No
Wells Fargo	Yes	No	Yes	No
Pinch&Zoom
Citibank	Varies by URL	No	No	No
GoBank	No	No	No	No

*Regions uses popup to provide choice of mobile view or full website

BillGuard Brings Email-Like UI to Mobile Banking Transaction Flow

By Jim Bruene Posted on January 22, 2014
Categories: Credit/Debit Cards, Mobile Banking, Personal Financial Management, UX

The ink wasn’t dry on my 2014 wishlist, when I got a message from BillGuard founder Yaron Samid, informing me that its new mobile UI was already doing what I’d most hoped for:

Wish #1: A Gmail-like priority inbox/feed for my financial transactions.

It’s as yet not quite Gmail-level functionality — for example, I’d like more tagging options than just “flag for later” — but compared to the state-of-the-mobile-art today, it’s pretty awesome. Thanks to BillGuard for getting the year off to a great start (note 1).

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How it works
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BillGuard aggregates credit and debit card transactions and flags suspicious items for review (see previous posts). So in that way, it has always acted like the Priority Inbox function within Gmail. However, its desktop UI looks more like a traditional PFM than an email inbox.

But for the smartphone, BillGuard has dramatically changed the interface. As you can see in the inset, they use “Inbox” as the name of the transaction register. There is even a red bubble showing how many new charges are available for review (see inset right).

The five primary items on the main screen:

Large green “card” >> Summarizes current month’s spending across all aggregated cards (you can also swipe through the individual cards)
Inbox >> New transactions and any that you’ve flagged for followup
All >> All transactions in a single infinitely scrolling list (I have 1,000+ transaction going back three years, and I can scroll through all of them in less than a minute). You can look at all transactions or just the recurring ones.
Analytics >> Month-over-month spending graphs
Savings >> Merchant-funded offers

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More on the UI
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1. Inbox view (click screenshot for a larger graphic):

Transactions are sorted with suspicious and unknown merchants listed on top and new, unviewed transactions below
Users can choose the right “Follow Up” tab to view only those transactions they have flagged for followup (see #x below)
User can swipe the transaction right to move it out of the new transaction inbox, as shown in the green “Metropolitan Market” transaction at right

2. Transaction detail

The transaction “card” contains expanded info on known merchants such as full name, location, and URL
There are three key buttons:
A. Green checkbox to okay the transaction, removing it from the inbox
B. Orange “followup” button to keep the transaction in the pending list for later review
C. Small gray box in upper right with a number that indicates how many transactions you’ve had with this merchant; clicking it brings up the list of all (10 in this case)

3. Merchant offer

Based on my transaction history, a discount offer from Target is displayed; clicking the green button brings up redemption options, in this case:
– Email offer
– Shop now

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Notes:
1. The mobile UI was actually released in the latter part of 2013.
2. Screenshot at top of post is an iPhone notification.

US Bank Adds Debit Card Section to Online Banking

By Jim Bruene Posted on August 2, 2012
Categories: Debit Cards, Online banking, US Bank, UX

US Bank, which has been busy building new online features of late, recently (note 1) added a debit card section to its online banking site. The new Check Cards & ATM Cards section is displayed on the default Your Accounts main page (see first screenshot).

Clicking on the debit card name takes users to an info page which outlines debit card withdrawal and purchase limits along with the accounts accessible through the card. I’ve banked there for 20 years and today is the first time I’ve ever known my daily limits.

The bank included embedded “help” bubbles around some of the key terms. But there are no direct links that explain the options or how to alter them (e.g., request an increase to my daily limit).

Bottom line: Treating debit cards like their own “product” makes good strategic sense. Users benefit from the added transparency, and it helps position the card as a value-add, something that could even support fees for premium options (e.g., a higher withdrawal limit, rewards, multi-account access, etc.).

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US Bank’s main online banking view now includes a debit card section (2 Aug 2012)

Users can click through to see the specific limits associated with the debit card
Note: On the right, the bank upsells Visa Money Transfer, a $1.95 per transaction P2P payment option

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Note:
1. I’m not sure when it was added, but today was the first time I noticed it.