If you want to know how to create engaging and popular mobile banking application, listen to Generation Z – they know better.
Generation Z are people born roughly between the mid-1990s to mid-2000s. In other words, Gen Z is an individual who was born into the digital era, for whom there is not an analog world without the Internet, instant feedback of social media, and the convenience of smartphones. They are digital natives. These people know well what they want from their digital experience. As a millennial, I think, “Yeah, probably Gen Z knows better what to expect from the software.”
If you can create a banking app Gen Z finds engaging and convenient, then you are able to create the ultimate online banking experience.
However, such a feat of software prowess as creating the ultimate online banking application requires a deep understanding of people’s values and pains as well as the specifics of the software market.
So…
Why Gen Z?
The Profile of Gen Z
How to Create Mobile Banking App that Would Appeal to Target Audience?
Interactive Banking Experience
Intuitive Banking Experience
Customizable Banking Experience
Conclusion
Why Gen Z?
Is not Generation Y (Millennials) the biggest demographic of online banking users? Should not we then consider Millennials as our target demographic for the development of an online banking system?
Millennials will not be the biggest active online population for long. Bloomberg predicted that in 2019, Gen Z will comprise 32% of the global population, exceeding Millennial’s share by 0.5%. Moreover, Zers already have an estimated purchasing power of $44 billion and two-thirds of them have bank accounts but still have not adopted debit and credit cards or loans. Therefore, soon they will make this adult-life transition, which presents an ideal moment for introducing them to the wonders and conveniences of digital banking. Also, digital natives are more interested in digital payment products and services and are predetermined to save their money.
Combine the mentioned above with the fact that for Gen Z digital experience is their second nature, and you have a perfect target audience who can guide you on your path of creating ultimate banking app that not only Gen Zers but most likely Millennials and older generations will find engaging.
As you can see, Generation Z is on the path to becoming the driving force of the digital economy, and it is essential to understand this force.
The Profile of Gen Z
Disclaimer: For the sake of convenience and pragmatism, we are going to make a lot of generalizations and well-founded assumptions here – not to undermine one’s individuality and uniqueness but to examine the universal characteristics that affect the software preferences of the majority. People are amazingly diverse.
So, imagine, you are a person born after the mid-90s. You learned how to use a computer roughly at the same time you learned how to write in cursive. A pen is more alien to you than the buttons of a keyboard. You despise bureaucracy for it is a relic of the past that somehow is still sticking around and makes everything unnecessarily complicated. You believe that individualism and creativity should be appreciated and promoted. Independence and flexibility are among the most important values of your life and you will go to great lengths in order to preserve them. You have been growing rightfully expecting that people should have convenient access to the world’s knowledge at their fingertips.
The ocean of information that has been surrounding you from childhood is so immense that you have a habit to ignore everything that is not able to interest you right off the bat. You are used to instant feedback and multitasking.
You want to stand out, to interact with the world in a dynamic and engaging way, to race with the time and win.
So, our Gen Zer believes in Independence, Flexibility, a World without limits, Individualism.
This is the profile of a person your banking app should appeal to.
How to Create Mobile Banking App that Would Appeal to Target Audience?
Considering mentioned above, a banking app that would appeal to Generation Z, and as a result, other generations should be
– Engaging
– Intuitive
– Customizable
Your application may provide the best service for the best price, but if it lacks in the other departments, the majority would not use it. Let’s analyze every characteristic in detail.
Interactive Banking Experience
Generation Z believes that life should be fun that people have all the tools to make even the most routine tasks smooth and engaging. Online banking, despite its inherent prosaicism, should not be an exception to this rule. Therefore, engaging banking applications should be Interactive.
Your banking app should feel as alive as possible. A user has to enjoy interacting with the application.
There are dozens of ways of making banking application interactive and fun to use:
– Interaction with content. Give a possibility to share and like content within an app. Ah, yes, content is essential as well. Creative and relevant content can significantly boost user experience and make your clients interact with the app more.
– Easter eggs. Add easter eggs to the application. Several clever and rewarding easter eggs add depth to the application, give users the possibility to feel the joy of discovery, and show that developers had fun creating this piece of software. Enjoyment is infectious.
– Gamification. Gamify the banking experience of your users. Add bonus system and achievements. For instance, the application can reward users for hitting their savings goals or limiting spending, or even buying healthier food. The only limit is your imagination.
– Notifications for different purposes. Add little notifications about interesting relevant events or facts as well as financial tips for the users. When users hear the sound of notification they should feel the urge to open the app and read the notification, and not ignore it, thinking “Uh, another boring spam.”
– Video content. Add video messages about updates and other important news. Text is ok, but video content will expand the user experience. All in all, human voice impacts us on a deeper level than plain text. Video messages should not belong and contain one central message. People will not spend time-consuming content that does not value people’s time.
– Humour. Also, do not be afraid to spice up in-app messages with some light-hearted humor. Nobody benefits from excessive formality (except Vogons).
Intuitive Banking Experience
“What the heck?! Where did they put monthly spendings statistics? Agh! ” throws a phone away with a grimace on the face.
Frustration kills the excitement. Especially in people who believe, and rightly so, that the world should be convenient and human-friendly.
The complicated online banking experience is arguably among the “Top Most Frustrating Things to Deal with during the Internet Era.” Your banking application should be intuitive and convenient. Therefore, ensure that the financial software has
– An adaptive interface. Each person is unique, so it is impossible to create a “universally convenient interface.” Therefore, we should use a software ability to “learn” based on a user’s activity. For instance, the banking application should make the options and products that the client uses more often easily accessible from the main screen. It is always pleasant to experience how some aspects of the world adapt to you. However, the screen should not be overloaded with various elements and display essential information and elements.
– Laconic screen. The screen is not overloaded with information and displays only essential bits at a time. Also, such information as, balances oт different accounts in different currencies, option to refill an account, and information about transactions should always be easily noticeable/accessible.
– Smart transactions.
The banking app should display different information depending on the type of transaction. For example, a transaction should have the possibility to make a split bill, tabs with debts, exchange rates, etc.
– An adaptive interface. Each person is unique, so it Is impossible to create a “universally convenient interface.” Therefore, we should use a software ability to “learn” based on the user’s activity. For instance, the banking application should make the options and products that the client uses more often easily accessible from the main screen. It is always pleasant to experience how some aspects of the world adapt to you. However, the screen should not be overloaded with various elements and display essential information and elements.
Synchronization with other services. For instance, your banking application should automatically download information for a transaction about the bank’s users from the contacts list on a user’s phone if there is a required person.
Customizable Banking Experience
Give users tools to make the banking app their own. Self-expression and flexibility are extremely important for our audience, and the application should not hinder these values. Thus, the online banking application should
– Have an adaptive interface. It helps here as well. An application that adapts to a user is pretty custom by default.
– Give a possibility to adjust the design. A user should have the possibility to change the colors and preferably fonts. It will allow users to individualize their banking application as well as help color-blind people who have unique color preferences.
– Have bonuses and achievements. Yes again as it also helps to individualize banking applications by allowing people to create personal financial goals and reward them for reaching those goals.
– Be a personal financial advisor. Modern online banking should not only serve but assist users in managing their finances. Therefore, the app should have a possibility to determine limits on certain products and services and monitor spending in addition to a casual display of expenses per category. It will help users control their buying habits and save more money. Don’t just tell that you care, show that you care. In addition, you will always have a possibility to improve the app’s financial advisor with smart algorithms that will help clients analyze the budget and provide valuable insights.
Also, don’t be afraid to interact with a user on a more personal level with your messages, “We see you like hitting the gym. Kudos to you and stay hydrated!” Or after a user buys another music album, “A fellow music lover? Great! Here’s an article on the best musical releases of 2019 that you may enjoy!”
Conclusion
Going digital is all about making this world a little more convenient place to be.
Traditionally, banking associates with a ton of paperwork, hustle, hidden commissions, and queues of worried people. Now, we are reinventing banking, pushing it into the world of Ones and Zeroes to make it serve people without the burdens of excessive formality, bureaucracy, and boring routines. Embrace a new era, and create your ultimate online banking experience so the emerging economic force of the young Generation Z and the rest of the world can benefit from and thoroughly enjoy interacting with the financial ecosystems enclosed within the neat shells of their smartphones.