Banks everywhere in Europe focus on “digital” which has led to significant advances in this space. As a top priority, banks are further extending functionalities of online banking, working to achieve the best user experience (UX) to further develop the mobile banking channel. They are exploring innovation topics such as blockchain technology or open and beyond banking. All of these fast-paced developments across such a broad range of topics make it challenging to compare banks’ digital capabilities.

In what functionalities have leading players invested? How have they developed their channels to facilitate client interaction in the digital age? Which bank offers the best UX in EMEA?

Deloitte has elaborated a comparison of digital banking functionalities, supplemented with UX testing, across a large number of banks across EMEA as per end 2017 and early 2018. Deloitte’s Digital Banking Maturity report covers 238 banks across 38 countries in EMEA, nine of which are in Switzerland.

The primary focus of this study is to address digital banking functionalities. What do we mean by this? For example, in online banking, blocking a credit card is one functionality. Unblocking a credit card is a second functionality. The same two functionalities may exist in mobile banking, which means that we are looking at four functionalities etc. All functionalities have been mapped along six customer journey steps, describing the entire interaction between the bank and the customer from product information gathering to closing the account.

Source: Deloitte Digital Bankinig Maturity Study 2018

How are Swiss banks positioned in comparison to other banks in EMEA regarding digital banking functionalities?

Purely in terms of functionalities, Swiss banks on average offer quite a broad range. This is particularly true for the two steps of the customer journey “day-to-day banking” and “expand relationship”, which account for the vast majority of relevant functionalities.

Comparing the range of functionalities to some other countries in EMEA, finding Turkey, Spain or Poland close to the top may not be surprising at all.

Almost the entire adult population in the Nordic countries is using digital banking on a regular basis (much more so than in Switzerland), contributing to these countries’ image as digital leaders. It seems banks in these countries do an excellent job around the basic, everyday functionalities that customers use regularly, namely login, checking account balance, reviewing transaction history, paying bills and sending money. Beyond that, Nordic countries are much more selective in what they invest in.

One of the hot topics in becoming digital is ‘beyond banking’. This includes functionalities such as registering a company, buying public transport tickets, digital document vaults, amongst others, i.e. services that go well beyond the traditional offering of banks. This is exactly where we see Nordic countries far ahead of the rest of EMEA again.

Source: Deloitte Digital Bankinig Maturity Study 2018

Similarly, fintechs such as Monzo in the UK, N26 in Germany, Russia’s Rocketbank or the Dutch bunq, often considered as a reference in the digital banking space, exhibit a much smaller set of functionalities in combination with a much smaller product range. This shows that fintechs do not differentiate themselves by offering the most extensive set of functionalities, but rather with a few, highly targeted innovations combined with a very good marketing. Swiss banks in contrast typically appear to be much less focused when investing in digital functionalities, showing a fairly broad offering across most areas of functionality.

What about user experience?

In terms of experience, we can observe a reversed picture for Switzerland: Swiss customers rated the UX with their respective Swiss bank relatively poorly compared to results from the rest of EMEA.

 Source: Deloitte Digital Bankinig Maturity Study 2018

As part of our EMEA-wide research, local bank clients in each country tested their main bank to assess the bank’s UX capabilities. Even when using well-accepted frameworks such as UEQ, any user experience assessment remains to some extent subjective as cultural bias may play a role. Nevertheless, the indication is so clear that we can conclude that user experience is a much more important area for Swiss banks to improve on – whereas most Swiss banks can be quite selective and are currently putting a large(r) focus on developing additional digital functionalities.

Source: Deloitte Digital Bankinig Maturity Study 2018

So what is best practice in digital banking in EMEA?

We observed the following four recurring characteristics among banks with top-of-class UX:

1. Simple and intuitive: Banks with a leading digital UX often radically reduce complexity, focusing only on a few, highly relevant features – especially mobile banking. Typically, these features are login, account balance, transaction history, money transfer and bill payment. This does not mean additional features are not offered, but they are presented without distracting from the most relevant, everyday features.
2. Beautiful and fun: Of course, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, and yet there are some recurring aspects. Nice-looking and ‘fun’ functionalities go hand-in-hand with reduced complexity, but additionally, leading banks pay a lot of attention to detail – for example icons or small animations which help to make the experience more lively and smooth (without being tacky).
3. Personal and engaging: Personalization is one of the key topics that many banks define as a cornerstone of differentiation for the digital offering – yet it remains one of the toughest nuts to crack. The key themes that can contribute to a leading UX include customization (e.g. home screen), drawing relevant insights for the customer (e.g. from spend analysis) and pro-active engagement (e.g. recommendations).
4. Multi-channel integration: Having a strong branch network remains one of the key differentiators for incumbent banks against digital-only challengers. Creating strong links between digital and other channels is therefore paramount.

How to bring digital banking to the next level?

Banks need to widen the perspective beyond these objective data points on the current state of digital front-ends and take into consideration:

• What priority does being digital have for our bank? What is the role of digital channels within our multi-channel mix?
• What is the strategic benefit of additional functionalities and how much should we invest to maintain a reasonable business case and market position likewise?
• If so, which are useful functionalities for our customers? Would purely focusing on improving the user experience of digital channels be sufficient?

Delivering digital transformation of course is not limited to re-working the customer front-end. Becoming digital requires a much more comprehensive action plan, which typically includes the following aspects:

• Investment in digital sales and service front-ends and corresponding delivery methods and capabilities (digital factory)
• Repercussions on other channels, including the role of each channel, most importantly branches (number, locations, formats) and branch staff
• Automation of underlying processes end-to-end
• Creating a more flexible IT architecture on top of legacy systems
• Analytical capabilities and data architecture
• Refinement of product design and pricing for the digital space
• Adequate cyber-security
• Organizational responsibility for digital and innovation
• People, skills and cultural transformation

Those banks understanding the above best practices and that have applied them to their specific business model, market conditions and client needs in a comprehensive, end-to-end implementation are those that will be leading European banking.