Sia Partners 2022 International Mobile Banking Benchmark

The digitization of banking services across the globe is evolving faster than ever before, driven by a multitude of factors. Rampant inflation leads to consumers looking for tools that help them keep closer track of their budget. Increased focus on ESG performance of corporations forces banks to take action for a healthier planet. Big tech applications have heightened client expectations when it comes to frictionless digital solutions. New technologies like crypto and decentralized finance are leading to the redesign and rethinking of financial services. Tech-savvy new entrants like Neobanks offer smooth and fast digital-only experiences. Fintechs often focus on one specific part of the banking value chain, specializing helps them to offer best-in-class products and services. Finally, banking customers have more control than ever about who has access to their data thanks to regulatory pressure.

All these factors lead to digital channels, and especially apps, becoming a quintessential part of customer journeys for banking products and services.

Each year, Sia Partners performs a benchmark on banking apps, searching for the most complete, innovative, and user-friendly banking applications in the world. Sia Partners' 2022 Mobile Banking Benchmark assessed the performance of 150+ banking applications in 22 countries across regions (EMEA, North America, Asia & Australia). The banks in scope of the study were evaluated on more than 85 criteria in 3 scoring streams: functionalities, user experience, and app store ratings.

The Benchmark methodology, based on the 3 scoring streams, follows an objective and transparent scoring method. A 4-point scale with standardized answer possibilities for each criterion guarantees comparability, transparency, and objectivity across banks.

• 50% of the final score comes from functionalities. This scoring stream contains functionalities related to Accounts, Cards, Transfers, Payment Services, Personal Finance Management (PFM), Investments, Insurance, Credit, User Support, and Beyond & Open Banking.
• 30% of the final score is based on user experience. Criteria related to convenience, design & ergonomy, and look & feel.
• 20% of the final score is retrieved from an average of Google Play store and Apple App store ratings, incorporating customers’ expectations and experiences on the application.

Our worldwide Mobile Banking Benchmark is a yearly exercise and the criteria are changing year-on-year, incorporating the newest trends, and evolving with customer expectations.

European banks dominate the ranking as digital leaders and change positions amongst themselves in a fight to take the podium. Revolut Metal (Neobank) is the winner of this year’s Mobile Banking Benchmark, with Intesa Sanpaolo (Italy) and last year’s winner, KBC (Belgium) ranking in the top three positions. Representing 80% of the top 10 banks, Europe clearly has cutting-edge banking applications. Overall, digital leaders offer best-in-class customer support as well as frictionless end-to-end customer journeys in their applications, even for non-daily banking functionalities such as credit and investments.  Additionally, they often incorporate innovative services that go beyond traditional banking services in their apps.

We see large gaps between the applications of different banks. Whereas digital laggards still struggle to offer performant daily banking functionalities like transfers, cards, and accounts; digital leaders are pushing innovations in Personal Financial Management (PFM), ESG, open banking, and beyond banking functionalities. 

The following ranking displays the Global Top Ten Banks of 2022:

The steps listed below are not necessarily a sequential path to be followed by banks. However, it can serve as a guideline towards success and is followed by the majority of digital leaders. 

1. Ensure the appropriate digital (back-end) infrastructure is in place as a foundation building block, and phase out legacy IT systems. 
2. Implement key daily banking functionalities, increasing daily client interaction and enhance top/bottom line (revenue generation, save FTE intervention cost). 
3. Provide a smooth, intuitive, and interactive omnichannel customer journey all along the way with CTA, (live) assistance, and moments of truth when developing mobile features. 
4. Enable digital end-to-end (sales) journeys, for basic products (e.g. savings account) as well as subscriptions of advanced offerings (e.g. credit, investment, and insurance). 
5. Implement innovative (Open & Beyond Banking, PFM,..) solutions, providing added value to users and prioritizing the mobile application as the key channel for everyday use. 
6. Transform customers into brand ambassadors resulting in high Customer Lifetime Value, favorable NPS scoring, and word-of-mouth advertising.