How To Create the Best Digital Banking UX

The right approach to UX design in banking can significantly enhance financial management and make it more enjoyable for customers. Some digital banking apps prioritize competition over customer satisfaction. But focusing on user experiences can strengthen loyalty and trust to your brand, increase conversion, retention, and revenue. We share the Arounda team's vision of what a high-quality UX in digital banking should look like.

What is User Experience in Banking? 

User experience (UX) in banking refers to customers' overall experience when interacting with a bank's products and services. It includes online and mobile banking platforms, ATMs, customer service channels, and in-person interactions at bank branches. But in this article, we will focus on digital banking UX.

UX in banking is crucial because it impacts customers' perception of a bank and their desire to keep using its services. A good UX increases customer loyalty and satisfaction. Meanwhile, a harmful UX leads to frustration, complaints, and customer loss.

Banks that rank UX design can create intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces and provide customers with quick access to the required information. For example, a well-designed mobile banking app may help customers check their account balances, transfer funds, and pay bills in just a few taps.

What Are the Common UX Issues in Banking Products?

User experience is about a deep understanding of your customer. So, those areas in your banking product that you don’t pay enough attention to will likely cause user churn. So, what are the common mistakes in UX worth avoiding?

Complex Onboarding Process

Onboarding is the first interaction users have with your banking product. If the process of signing up and learning about your FinTech solution is complex and confusing, it can scare away your customers.

Annoying Authentication

The security of banking platforms and transactions is critically important. But what could be more frustrating than entering all your PINs and passwords every time you need to check your balance? The ideal solution is to find a balance between security and convenience.

Confusing App Navigation

The finance industry itself is quite complex. It requires customers to understand financial instruments and services, not to mention the use of digital solutions. Does your banking product offer a complex information architecture? Then, consider improving it as the navigation must be intuitive.

Insufficient Personalization

Personalization is relevant for banking products and many other areas and solutions. Modern users expect the ability to customize the software to their needs, thus improving their experience with your app.

Tips For Best User Experience in Digital Banking

First of all, a design team should conduct user research to understand your customers' needs and preferences to ensure a good banking UX design. They should also regularly test and iterate products and services based on customer feedback. Finally, following our main rules for a fintech design.

Focus on Security 

Ensure your bank's online and mobile platforms can protect customers' sensitive information. Use strong passwords, two-factor authentication, and other security measures to keep customers' accounts safe.

Keep It Simple and Intuitive 

The financial sector has specific terms one needs to understand when creating a banking app or platform. Provide simple instructions and make sure the content is as clear as possible. Straightforward navigation will help customers complete their desired tasks hassle-free.

Make It Easy to Contact Customer Support 

Provide many channels to contact the support team, including phone, email, and chat. Ensure that customer support is available 24/7 and responds promptly to user inquiries. It’s even better if your app resolves issues before they arise. For example, create a separate section with tips, instructions, and FAQs.

Personalize the Experience 

Use customer data and insights to personalize the user experience. For example, recommend relevant products and services based on customers' transaction history or provide personalized alerts for account activities.

Provide Self-Service Options

Allow customers to create their own workspace. It can save their time and improve the overall experience. The more options your app offers to meet user needs, the better the digital banking UX.

Apply Failure Mapping to Improve Your UX

You cannot create a perfect user interface that will suit everyone. It is because all users are different and, accordingly, there is no standard solution.

However, you can investigate exactly how your customers behave in your application using the failure mapping approach. It lies in identifying problematic scenarios of using your banking platform. This process also involves trying to understand your user’s logic.

Eliminate Complex Design Elements

An excess of features confuses and even annoys users. So, the more elements and information blocks in your banking or money transfer app, the more complex it is for a typical user.

Try to place features and design elements according to their priority for your customers. Highlight them in different visual ways: fonts, colors, etc. Also, don’t confuse simplicity with primitiveness: your banking system should be minimalistic but useful.

Provoke an Emotional Connection

Even if you think emotions have no place in banking, it is not the case. Financial applications’ complexity and excessive rationality create a gap between them and their customers. Therefore, you should focus on making your users closer to you.

You need to work on personalized experience to achieve an emotional connection with customers. Pay attention to the language of your application as well. Design should not just be what your users see but what they feel.

Make Your Banking Platform’s Design Consistent

When we talk about consistent design, we mean that it should be smooth and logical. All screens and elements of your platform should be connected and not make customers feel like they are using different products.

To make your user interface design for an online banking system consistent, you need to standardize the vision of your product in general. It applies to fonts, colors, images, buttons, information blocks, etc.

Offer Problem-Solving Features

Bank application providers often want to pack as many features into the platform as possible. But do users need all these functionalities?

Instead, focus on making your banking product’s features solve real user problems. No one needs a lot of functions if they don’t hit critical customer needs.

Don’t Be Afraid to Change

The financial sector cares about corporate image and is often reluctant to adjust. Change it by being open to innovation. It applies both to the introduction of some advanced technology and to new design solutions.

Remember that the most important thing is to focus on your users, not on the legacy of the corporate culture. After all, your customers will bring you profits and success.

How Can Banks Balance Security and Usability in UX Design?

While security is a top priority, it shouldn’t compromise the usability and convenience of your design. Here are some strategies to achieve it:

• Use multi-factor authentication (MFA) to enhance security while keeping the user experience simple and intuitive. MFA combines two or more authentication methods, such as passwords and fingerprints.
• Provide clear and concise instructions when customers must complete security measures, such as changing passwords or verifying identities.
• Adopt risk-based authentication to customize security measures based on the transaction risk level. For example, a high-value transaction may require additional authentication steps. In contrast, a routine transaction may only require a password.

How Can UX Design Boost Banks’ Profitability?

These days, customers tend to expect seamless digital experiences. So banks need to keep up with these expectations to remain competitive. By investing in UX design, your fintech business can stand out from the competition and create a customer-centric culture leading to increased profits. Good banking UX design can do it in several ways:

• Increased customer loyalty. When banks provide a positive and seamless user experience, customers are more likely to remain loyal. Thus, they will continue using a bank's products and services. It can lead to increased customer retention and a higher customer lifetime value.
• Reduced customer churn. A poor user experience can lead to frustrated customers. As a result, they may switch to another bank. By improving the user experience, banks can reduce churn rates and retain more customers.
• Higher transaction volumes. A well-designed user experience can make it easier for customers to complete transactions, such as transferring funds or paying bills. It will increase transaction volumes and generate more revenue for your bank.
• Cross-selling and upselling opportunities. A positive user experience allows cross-selling and upselling a bank's products and services. For example, a customer with a positive experience with a mobile banking app will be more likely to sign up for a credit card or other financial product.
• An advantage over the competition. Investing in UX design can also help banks stand out from their competitors, attracting new customers looking for a better digital experience. With a well-designed digital platform that is easy to use and navigate, your FinTech solution will offer a clear competitive advantage.

Explore our case studies to see real results our team has helped achieve, business problem our clients came with, and our solutions we offered.

How to Understand That My Product Needs Improvements?

If you are a fan of customer-centric design, you know that the needs of your users are of utmost importance. So, it is necessary to conduct a UX audit to understand whether your banking platform is usable enough.

We have good news for you: Arounda deeply understands this process. We help our clients become market leaders by offering a flawless user experience.

Here is how we conduct a UX audit:

1. We analyze the user experience. We study how users interact with your product to explore the logic of their behavior and their emotions. As a result, we find bugs in the design that needs fixing.
2. We study the content. Our designers review the content of your application and determine whether it meets the needs and goals of your business. We also consider whether this content is appropriate for your users.
3. We look for technical errors. During the UX audit, we also look at the general performance of your banking platform. For example, how long do the pages of your application take to load and whether there are technical errors to fix.
4. We provide summary documentation. After conducting a UX audit, we draw all our conclusions in a document. There you will find tips for improving your specific product.

When might you need a UX audit? Here are some typical scenarios.

• You need a banking product redesign.
• You want to validate a new banking product.
• You need to define key product metrics.

So, by conducting a UX audit with Arounda, you can satisfy your users, increase conversion rates, and reduce product development and design costs.

Summary

Financial management requires special tools. And you can create them using the principles we have described above. We have tried all these UX design banking tips for over ten years of experience in the FinTech industry. Of course, a great UX in digital banking mostly depends on human centered design rules. But it’s also worth paying special attention to data protection and clear instructions.

Good UX design reduces operational costs by offering customers a user-friendly digital platform. It eliminates the need for physical branches and personnel. It can also help banks save on overhead costs, increase efficiency, and improve their bottom line.

Contact us, and we will provide a strategic UX for your project!