If you get across articles on digital banking in 2017-2018 you would realize that the predictions for 2021 in the number of registrations and the financial turnover of mobile banking apps were quite modest, compared to what happened in reality due to the pandemic and the effect it had on the banking sphere.
Not surprisingly, based on the analytics in April 2020, just after the USA claimed a state of emergency the new registrations in mobile banking apps soared 200% with a steady tendency of increasing even more.
There is no doubt that the level of banking digitalization isn’t likely to go down. Moreover, new technologies emerging and their rapid integration with the FinTech sphere could indicate the further growth of mobile banking solutions embedding broader functionality.
Banks and other financial institutions can only benefit from their mobile banking apps, as they reduce operating costs, improve the customer experience, and more importantly, increase security compared to accessing a bank account online via internet banking.
Mobile Banking Development Trends in 2022
1. Fast-Growing Chain of Neobanks
Though brick-and-mortar banks are still the only way to settle some of the ongoing financial issues, only-digital banks are here to support their clients with online onboarding, account managing, balance checking, money transfers, money exchange, and other functionality.
2. Rapid Blockchain Adoption
Bearing in mind many of the banking services including bond and stock trade, clearinghouses, exchanges, audit, bookkeeping, and others, Blockchain input could be a significant step to bring these services to security and transparency, and spicing them up with the instant nature. This technology is expected to gain more traction in mobile banking as it can improve transaction security and reduce costs.
3. Data Science and AI-driven development
The introduction of AI into banking app development not only lowers operational costs by 22% but also helps banks and other financial institutions personalize the customer experience. AI and Data Science, together with Big Data are changing the banking sphere for the better: preventing fraud, detecting anomalies in the accounts activity, providing detailed customer analytics, and taking the bank applying such apps ahead of competitors.
4. Increased Emphasis on Cybersecurity
As mobile banking usage grows, cybersecurity concerns will continue to be a top priority for mobile banking developers. Banks and other institutions that offer financial transactions receive and store large amounts of sensitive customer data. Any data leak or data breach could be harmful to end users, as their identities, passwords, and other information could be misused by cybercriminals. Mobile banking apps are likely to invest more in cybersecurity measures, such as encryption and two-factor authentication, to protect users’ data and transactions.
5. Open Banking APIs
Open banking which enables third-party providers to access bank data through APIs is becoming more widespread in the financial industry. Mobile banking apps could leverage open banking to offer new services and partnerships, such as savings and investment products.
6. Focus on Financial Inclusion
With the growing demand for financial services among the unbanked population, mobile banking apps could increasingly focus on providing services that cater to the needs of underbanked or unbanked customers.
The aforementioned trends in mobile banking app development shape to some extent the way banking apps function nowadays because vendors always try to anticipate clients’ needs and cater to them in the best possible way.
7 Must-have Features for a Banking App
In this section, we would like to specify the basic features of a mobile banking app, give the approximate time required to implement it, and estimate mobile banking app development costs. Mind that the price for the service stems from the total number of development hours multiple $50 (average hourly rate of a senior coder). Note, that the calculation of development hours below as well as the mobile banking development costs are very rough estimations and cannot be considered as the final price for the services. Moreover, in case you would like to cooperate on other terms, for example, hiring a dedicated team, the costs differ.
1. Onboarding and Authentication
This is a very important feature because registration and authentication in a banking app should be secure and at the same time should not take a lot of time and be a headache for the user. It’s important to provide a seamless onboarding experience and ensure that the process complies with AML regulations. Authentication should be secured with either PIN, SMS, fingerprint sensor, or iris scan. Onboarding along with authentication can take up to 220 development hours, which equates to $11,000.
2. Cards Management
A straightforward way to check account balance and transaction history leads to higher customer satisfaction. Also, the customer should be able to change the PIN, order a new card, block the card, if needed, or update some personal information effortlessly. To enable these basic features a team should spend around 276 hours and you might pay $13,800 for front-end and back-end architecture development.
3. Money Transfer and Bill Payment
Customers should be able to make local and international financial transactions, pay utility bills, and preview the payments at the checkout. Ideally, the app should include alongside the traditional methods of payment NFC payments, UPI payments, QR-code-based payments, and others. While connecting banking servers to the app, mind applying additional security levels. To implement these features a development team might spend around 1070 hours and it’s likely to cost you $53,500.
4. Cashback
Many banks have agreements with grocery chains or other trading companies to provide cashback for their customers in case cardholders are paying with the bank card at the shop. It could be an important feature to obtain new customers and its implementation might take up to 150 development hours which is equivalent to $7,500.
5. Customer Support 24/7
Of course, any bank has customer support that customers can access during the bank opening hours. For other cases, it’s a good idea to come up with an AI-driven chatbot that will be there for your customers 24/7 providing personalized help and guidance. 180 development hours are usually spent on this feature implementation which would cost around $9,000.
6. Settings and Push Notifications
Your customers need to have their accounts easy to manage, add a new phone number to their information section, new address, change the account type, etc. Also, in case there is something that needs an update, the app should be able to notify the customer. Another way to grab users’ attention is to enable transactional push alerts and promotional notifications offering deals and discounts. A development team could spend around 325 hours to provide the app with the needed functionality, so $16,250 from the budget would be likely spent on it.
7. Branch/ATM Locator
With the idea to make it easy for customers to spot the nearest free-of-charge ATM or bank branch, it’s worth considering your app integration with Google maps or App maps through the APIs. It might take up to 128 development hours and will cost you $6,400 to enable this functionality.
How to Develop a Mobile Banking App
✔️ Have a Plan and Conduct Research
Mind thorough preparation and run the market research not to end up spending all your budget developing a mobile banking application that is not very welcomed by the end-users. Study the competitors, their digital solutions, and what preferences your target audience might have. It’s crucial to understand who your customers are: students, families, corporate clients, or institutions. What’s more important, find out what they need, and this to a great extent affects the app toolkit and the sketching.
You should also give proper attention to security and compliance regulations, such as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), and others.
✔️ Prototype Creation
Mobile banking app development can be quite costly compared to other FinTech solutions. That’s why it’s a good idea to create a detailed prototype to see what your product will look like. Use your app wireframe and then hi-fi prototype to get feedback as early as possible while validating your concept. Discuss with your focus group the required toolkit, test interface, and functionality of the prototype.
✔️ Choose a Vendor with the Needed Technology Expertise
At this stage, it is crucial to make the right choice. Go online and contact several fintech development companies with the checklist for your future solution. Discuss project scope, scalability, and complexity. Pay attention to the responses of the company representatives regarding the number of professionals, their skills, and their proven track record in fintech development.
✔️ Test your App
The stage of testing your solution is as important as the process of its creation, especially in mobile banking app development. Get hold of in-app experiences, boost the core metrics, and test the features in production. Of course, if you made up your choice to outsource the development to the company with the in-house designing, development, and testing departments, you would benefit because the level of cooperation between them is much higher than freelancers or separate companies responsible only for their part in the solution creation.
✔️ Product Maintenance
As soon as the solution is ready, you upload it to Google Play and AppStore and wait for feedback or reach out to influencers and bloggers in your field. For the best outcome, make sure the maintenance of the app is discussed in the contract and the vendor who knows the project and is responsible for all stages of the development is the one maintaining it.
Itexus Experience in Mobile Banking App Development
As a trusted fintech software development partner, Itexus delivered multiple apps to banks to customers around the world. Have a look at a couple of our recent projects.
White-Label Mobile Banking App
A Silicon Valley-based provider of digital banking services approached us to develop a white-label mobile banking app. The solution is targeted at financial companies in the U.S. market that want to offer mobile banking apps under their brands. Our cross-functional team experts delivered a customizable and scalable white-label mobile banking application in full accordance with the client’s requirements, on time, and on budget.
You can find more details on the project in the case study.
Mobile Bank Transfer App
For a U.S.-based client, we developed a mobile bank transfer app that enables its users to send money from US-issued bank cards to foreign bank accounts, as well as to pay bills internationally. The app is multilingual and has three easily-changeable interface languages: English, Spanish, and French.
You can find more details on the project in the case study.
Summary
Banking software development is a sensitive issue for both financial companies and development agencies. So, make sure that the vendor you choose has the required certifications to comply with government security regulations, has developed a variety of similar solutions, has the required knowledge of cutting-edge technologies, and speaks the same language as you when it comes to understanding your goals and striving for the best outcome.
Also, go for a discovery phase option to build additional confidence in the vendor during the early stage of your product development. For valuable insights on mobile banking app development or to get a quote from us, click here. We assure you that we will take good care of your project.