Would you bank with your bank?  Consider this real life scenario that just happened a few weeks ago.  8:45 PM, Wednesday, ubiquitous Irish pub midtown Manhattan.  Ba-Ding! Reflexively my eyes glance toward my iPhone screen.  $832.00 at Target, says a push notification from my mobile banking app.  These days, my mobile is not just a phone, it’s an extension of my conscious.  Notification, mini-dopamine reaction, react, but wait — this time is a little different.  I quickly pick up my phone, open the mobile app and stare for a moment at this transaction that I couldn’t possibly have made.  Then, with 2 taps on the screen, disable the card to prevent future purchases.  

Transaction notifications are one of the most useful features of mobile banking smartphone apps.  Before them, I wouldn’t have noticed that my card details had been stolen until I sat at my desktop and checked my bank account. That could have been a week later.  Mobile banking apps keep us engaged and more connected to our banks. They change the way we reconcile our accounts.  Now when I get a signature receipt back from a restaurant, the transaction is waiting for me to validate the amount.  

According to a recent Finextra article, ‘Mobile continues to dominate at top US banks’, sometime in the second quarter of last year, the distribution of people using desktop only versus mobile, tilted. Now 53% of us bank using our mobile phones.  This is not surprising.  In fact, I expected this number to be much higher, if only because it seems everything else we do is mobile.

Later, another notification from my bank came through. They let me know they had credited me $832 and overnighted me a new debit card.    Many banks are simply not capitalizing on the features that are now available in mobile banking.  How can we, as an industry, provide the same kind of seamless banking experience to our clients?

1. Ensure your digital banking solutions and all core, bill pay, p2p, remote deposit and credit card transaction systems are properly integrated. They must deliver a clear, consistent message to the customer, regardless of source.  Messages should be sent through app notifications.
2. Implement soft-carding!  Soft carding allows clients to temporarily disable a debit or credit card, usually with a couple of taps in their smart phone or web application.  It’s handy for preventing fraud and making clients feel safe at the same time.  If someone hasn’t really lost their card, or a charge isn’t really fraud, the client can simply re-enable their card with a couple more taps.
3. Make sure the notifications that you send to clients are meaningful to them.  A constant stream of notifications means clients are less likely to pay attention to an important message amongst the noise.

My experience had potential to be much, much worse.  The innovative approach to digital channels and real-time alerts solidifies confidence that I made the right decision when selecting my bank, and that my bank made the right decisions when implementing their digital channels solution. 

Would your clients feel the same way?