First Bank, Diamond Bank and Access Bank mobile applications have received more positive reviews from top ten users surveyed on the Google Play Store, BusinessDay has found.
BusinessDay has been tracking the performance of the mobile applications of eighteen Nigerian banks on Google Play Store. It should be noted that some of these banks have more than one mobile application. For instance, Wema Bank claims possession of the WemaMobile Bank and ALAT apps. GTBank has GTBank app, GTWorld, Bank *737*, GTBank Gambia and GTCube. The survey has however focused on the mobile app that houses majority of the banks’ products and most preferred by customers.
Mobile bank applications or mobile banking refers to services provided by a financial service institution that enables customers carry out financial transactions anywhere they are at any time using their mobile devices. The features on the apps enable users to take charge of their financial activities such as checking account balance, transferring funds, paying utility bills, access and download bank statements, monitor monthly savings among others.
For Nigerian customers, the most popular online store to download the mobile applications is the Google Play Store.
A unique aspect of an app store such as the Play Store is the convenience of providing user feedback. Users can effortlessly leave a review and a rating for an app, providing quick feedback for developers. It has developers to better update their apps.
Over the years, increasing demand for convenience has giving rise to new features like biometric fingerprint login, text alerts and expense tracking, multiple accounts transaction on several banks mobile applications. In turn, users give feedback on their interactions with the features.
The eighteen banks BusinessDay surveyed include Diamond, Access Bank, First Bank, UBA, Zenith Bank; Ecobank; First Bank; Stanbic IBTC; FCMB; Unity Bank; Skye Bank; Wema Bank; Union Bank; Fidelity Bank; GTBank; Sterling Bank; Jaiz Bank; Keystone Bank; and Heritage Bank.
The eighteen banks put together have recorded downloads in excess of six million, nine hundred and seventy thousand (6,970,000).
However, only six banks (30 percent) account for more than six million downloads. These banks apps which include Diamond Mobile; Access Bank Plc; FirstMobile; UBA Mobile Banking; Zenith Bank Mobile App;and Ecobank Mobile Banking have been downloaded over one million times each by customers.
See table below:
50 percent of the eighteen mobile apps have seen over 900,000 downloads. These include Stanbic IBTC Mobile; FCMBMobile; UnityMobile; SkyeMobile; ALAT by Wema; UnionMobile; Fidelity Online Banking; GTWorld; and Sterling Bank Mobile.
Three banks – Jaiz, Keyston and Heritage – account for the remaining 70,000 downloads.
While five of the top six mobile apps have been updated in the first quarter of 2018, only FirstMobile is yet to be updated.
Zenith Bank’s mobile app won the battle for size with only 3.7M. Whereas, with a size of 80M, ALAT by Wema is likely the mobile app that takes the most space of all the banks apps on users’ devices.
Some of the issues customers complained about some of the mobile applications include intermittent shut downs at the time of transactions; inability to log into once updated; too heavy, poor user friendliness; too complicated to navigate;
“It’s become buggy since the last update,” said a user of one of the mobile apps, “Takes quite a while to start, screen goes dark when you first open the app, could you check this please? Otherwise, great and helpful app.”
Another user wrote on the Play Store “Tried the app and it has a nice simple enough interface. User can perform basic banking tasks that usually require customers to go into a branch. This app got 3 start because it is heavy reliant on the use of SMS for confirmation and also displays inaccurate confirmation messages. Modern apps incorporate the use of email more. Fix the above to bring this app into the modern app space.”
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