Keynova Group, the principal competitive intelligence source for digital financial services firms, today announced the results of the Q3 2024 edition of its Mobile Banker Scorecard. U.S. Bank retained the top rank with the highest Overall Score for its mobile user experience in Keynova Group’s competitive evaluation of 17 leading U.S. banks’ mobile app and mobile web offerings.

The Scorecard’s findings reveal advances in mobile access to account information, including productive search and filter options in transaction history and improvements in debit card management. Mobile security safeguards, like card lock and transaction limits, are widely offered by credit card issuers and banks’ improvements to mobile management of debit cards bring them into alignment.

“Banks are adopting a mobile-centric approach that enables customers to efficiently access account transactions through their mobile device,” said Susan Foulds, managing director, Keynova Group. “Responding to the increasing use of debit cards at the point of sale and online, together with a growing reliance on mobile banking, banks are working toward providing mobile parity with online banking to offer a similar customer experience through both channels.”

Key Findings:

Advances in Mobile Banking Transaction Search, Filter and Sort

Transaction search and filter functionality through mobile banking apps has significantly progressed in the past two years yielding creative mobile-optimized experiences. Most of the Scorecard banks (82%) enable mobile app users to search or filter transaction history by dollar and date range, 76% support search by transaction description and 70% enable free-form keyword search of transactions. While filtering elements to locate specific transactions can be helpful for banking on the go, only 41% of banks enable mobile app users to filter deposit account transactions by type, such as deposits, transfers, and Zelle or bill payments. More than half (65%) offer this functionality through authenticated mobile web browsers. Currently, only 12% of the banks provide sort functionality in their apps, a common option in desktop online banking to quickly reorder transaction activity to identify an item. Virtual assistants can be efficient in finding older transactions or searching accounts with high volume activity via mobile as well. Today, less than 30% of banks offer virtual assistants that are able to identify transactions by type or display deposits upon request. Only Bank of America’s Erica and U.S. Bank’s Smart Assistant identify recurring transactions and fees, proactively notifying users of duplicate debit transactions when prompted—a valuable attribute.

Mobile Debit Card Management Services Improve

Banks have also greatly improved mobile debit card management capabilities. Mobile users can request a card replacement through most of the banks’ apps, and Wells Fargo guides customers to immediately add the new card account number to their digital wallet. Card lock can be essential if the card is lost or a wallet is stolen—especially for debit cards tied to deposit accounts. All of the Scorecard banks now enable mobile app users to lock/unlock a debit card, and nearly three-quarters extend that capability to mobile web users. PIN reset is available through 71% of banks’ mobile apps and via mobile web at 59% of banks. Daily transaction limits, which are important for controlling spending and preventing fraud, are supported by just over one-third of banks for both app and mobile web users. Restricting card usage is less common, with few bank apps allowing customers to turn off the card for specific types of purchases, such as online purchases and foreign transactions. The ability to personalize debit card options at ATMs is rising though, with 41% of banks enabling users to withdraw cash at an ATM through the mobile app instead of using a card, while Fifth Third provides a QR code for ATM access.