Keynova Group, the principal competitive intelligence source for digital financial services firms, today announced the results of the Q1 2023 edition of its semi-annual Mobile Banker Scorecard. For the fourth time in a row, U.S. Bank earned top honors for its mobile banking capabilities and customer experience, ranking No. 1 for Overall Score in an evaluation of the country’s 17 leading mobile banking offerings. The Scorecard reveals that even as the use of innovative mobile banking support options like chatbots and virtual assistants (VAs) continues to grow, the capabilities offered are inconsistent.

“As today’s leading banks strive to balance providing insightful information keyed to account holders’ lifestyles with cost-effective digital self-servicing, readily accessible digital support and personalized live assistance, mobile banking support comes in various styles with wide-ranging capabilities," said Susan Foulds, Keynova Group's Managing Director. “The availability and functionality of chatbots and live chat have trended up but true virtual assistants – which we still see as the future standard - are slow to propagate as it is costly and complicated to implement and develop truly intelligent VAs.”

Key Findings:

Digital Assistant Chat Capabilities Greatly Vary Among the growth of digital customer support options, mobile banking users are typically offered four variations: chatbots with programmed answers; chatbots with a two-way chat messaging thread; live text chat; and virtual assistants with AI-assisted or natural language processing. The most popular digital support provided by 90% of the 17 leading mobile banks are chatbots – with an equal number of banks offering mobile users assistance via chatbots with programmed answers and chatbots with two-way messaging. More than half (53%) of the evaluated mobile banking apps provide live chat assistance – nearly doubling the availability of that option just six months ago. Another 24% provide two-way, near real-time chatbot messaging for authenticated app users.

Nascent Virtual Assistants with Natural Language Processing are Evolving

Virtual assistants with natural language processing that understand the various ways users ask questions are emerging for mobile banking support. Yet, less than 20% of the Scorecard banks – just Bank of America, Truist and U.S. Bank – offer VAs driven by AI and predictive analytics. Though a few other banks have announced their intent to release VAs this year, the available skills and levels of assistance are vastly divergent. Bank of America’s Erica and U.S. Bank’s Smart Assistant both support interactive text and voice inquiries with a blend of text and audio responses. In addition, these app users can instruct the VAs to make person-to-person (P2P) payments with voice instruction and display filtered transactions. Only Bank of America’s Erica will proactively warn customers about the potential of insufficient funds to cover scheduled payments. Truist’s virtual assistant, Truist Assist, stands out for quickly connecting users to a live representative after one or two unsuccessful inquiries and providing proactive insights about account activity.

Mobile Security Measures Help Mitigate Risks

As security remains at the forefront for mobile banking users, banks are responding with more security features and functionality. While all 17 Scorecard banks enable mobile app users to lock/unlock their credit or debit cards, nearly one-third (30%) of the banks offer the option to select types of card transactions to lock (or prevent) such as foreign, online or CNP purchases. Similarly, more than 50% of banks are now offering alerts for specific types of card transactions—up from 35% of banks just 12 months ago. Displaying the last login information on the first account summary screen after logging into digital banking is a long-standing banking best practice to help detect fraudulent activity. Mobile is catching up with online banking as 60% of banks now display the last login on the first mobile screen or the navigation bar. Scanning drivers’ licenses with mobile phones to verify the ID of new customers opening accounts is also on the rise with 41% of the banks’ apps adopting this easy-to-use and efficient technology—nearly doubling in the last two years.

About the Q1 2023 Mobile Banker Scorecard

Keynova Group’s semi-annual, fact-based Mobile Banker Scorecard, offered for more than two decades, evaluates digital user capabilities, customer experience elements, and best practices to identify evolving trends and insights that drive mobile strategy in banking. The evaluation encompasses the mobile apps and websites of Bank of America, BMO Harris, Capital One, Chase, Citibank, Citizens Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Huntington Bank, KeyBank, M&T Bank, PNC, Regions Bank, TD Bank, Truist, USAA, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo. For more information please visit: https://www.keynovagroup.com/scorecards/#banking