CBA takes the lead for mobile banking in Australia
CBA beats rival Westpac by just one point in the national mobile banking survey.
Commonwealth Bank (CBA) has taken the top spot in Forrester’s 2017 Australian Mobile Banking Benchmark survey, which analyses mobile banking services based on functionality and usability.
While CBA led on user experience and came out with the highest score overall, its rival Westpac achieved the highest score in terms of functionality.
CBA has started to move into money management, with its mobile banking service offering more sophisticated features that help its customers stay on top of their finances.
In April this year, the bank launched two new features on its mobile banking app, Transaction Notifications and a Spend Tracker, which were initially available to credit card customers and designed to help customers meet savings goals. Both features are designed to better track spending and to help customers budget.
When launching the new money management features, Pete Steel, executive general manager of digital at Commonwealth Bank, said it was in response to increased customer demand.
“In a recent survey, we found that 73% of Australians want banks to do more to understand their needs and concerns and 72% want their bank to help them manage their finances in a rapidly changing world,” said Steel.
Forrester analyst Zhi Ying Ng said that money management tools such as those launched by CBA are the future of mobile banking and they are widely lacking in mobile banking.
“Banks around the world are using behavioural science to help engage their customers by providing more intuitive mobile features that help them manage their money,” said Ng.
“Apart from Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, the other Australian banks still have a way to go when it comes to money movement, service features, cross-channel guidance and marketing and sales,” said Ng.
However, according to data from RFi Group, consumers prefer functionality features such as card-locking functions over behavioural-type money-management features.
“Financial health-related tools currently offered by banking apps are rarely used by customers in the market and satisfaction with them is fairly low, so this is an opportunity area for the likes of Commonwealth Bank to build on, particularly with their recent behavioural/savings-focused features,” RFi Group research director Amit Khan said.
National Australia Bank (NAB) was ranked third in the survey, followed by Macquarie and ANZ.
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