Why is Banking App Development Essential?

Types of Banking Apps

There are different types of mobile banking software available in the market. They come with various features and serve other purposes.

Mobile Banking Apps

These apps are popular and allow you to perform all essential information regarding the maintenance of bank accounts. Users can check their account balances, transfer funds, and pay bills. 

Investment Apps

These mobile apps are used to buy and sell investment instruments. Users can buy and sell stocks, bonds, and mutual funds and invest in cryptocurrencies. 

Digital Wallet Apps

Digital Wallets that serve as a digital currency. They are connected to a user’s credit or debit card on their smartphones, allowing them to purchase online or in-store.

Finance Apps

Finance Apps offer users various financial services and tools, such as investment management, capital markets, and loan lending on their smartphones. 

Money Manager Apps

Money manager apps enable users to effectively manage their finances, such as income, expenses, and budgeting.

Banking App Features 

Online banking applications are equipped with numerous features that offer convenience and accessibility to users. Knowing about the app features is essential before initiating the banking app development process. Here are the features.

Account Management 

Account management is the core functionality of a banking app. It allows users to check their account balance details, transaction history, account statements, and other identical options. 

Fund Transfers

Another notable feature of banking apps is that they allow fund transfers from a user’s account to another account. It includes transfers between the accounts in the same bank, transferring funds to accounts in other banks, and depositing mobile checks. 

Protection

Banks enact sophisticated security measures for the banking apps. These security measures include highly advanced authentication and authorization strategies. It includes biometric authentication, multi-factor authentication (M.F.A.), two-factor authentication (2FA), and transaction verification measures. These security features are essential for banking apps to prevent fraud or scams. 

Bill Payments

Banking apps allow users to pay bills directly through the app. These include utility bills, credit/debit card bills, and loan repayments. Some banking apps also will enable you to schedule bill payments.

Digital Wallets

Mobile banking apps also allow users to integrate debit or credit cards with digital wallets to enable seamless payments and lessen plastic card use. Some of the most popular digital wallets are Wallet, Google Pay, and Apple Pay.

Card Management

You can also manage your credit and debit cards through banking apps. You can temporarily lock or unlock your card for security reasons. Similarly, you can request card replacement for a lost or damaged card and change your card’s P.I.N. through the app.

Customer Support

Banking apps also provide access to 24/7 customer support via chat, phone, or email. Many banking apps have AI-powered chatbots to ensure a better customer experience.

A.T.M. and Branch Locator 

Most banking apps offer mobile services to locate nearby ATMs and bank branches through integration with geolocation APIs. 

Push Notifications

Users receive notifications from the app for any account activity, low balance, hefty transactions, updates, and other similar activities. 

Q.R. Code Scanner

Remember to include the Q.R. code scanner feature during the banking app development process. This feature lets users scan QR codes on bills, invoices, and payments. It aims to simplify the process of transactions and make payments.

Personalization

Many banking apps allow users to personalize their apps depending on their preferences. Users can include their theme and choose an avatar, which can help to bolster the user experience.

No Card for A.T.M. Withdrawals

Some highly advanced banking apps also offer the option to withdraw A.T.M. cash through the app confirmation on your smartphone. This facility makes your A.T.M. card redundant. 

Advantages of Banking Apps

Mobile banking apps offer convenience and 24/7 accessibility to users. However, numerous benefits lie in store for investors. Let’s explore some key advantages. 

Advantages for Users

Convenience

The most significant benefit of banking apps is that they offer convenience. Users can perform their banking functions without visiting an actual bank. A banking app commonly allows users to check their account balances, pay bills, and transfer and receive funds. 

24/7 access

Banking apps provide users with 24/7 access to transfer and receive funds, pay bills, or check their account balance anywhere. If you consider the conventional banking hours, the mobile banking apps offer excellent accessibility for funds transfer, bill payments, and checking account balances.

Real-time Updates

Mobile banking apps provide real-time updates to users regarding any account activity. Users instantaneously receive notifications when funds are sent, funds are deposited, and when users log in to their banking app.

Reliable security

Mobile banking apps are powered with cutting-edge security measures. These apps use biometric verification, 2-factor authentication (2FA), and multi-factor authentication (M.F.A.) to safeguard sensitive account information. Rest assured that your bank account details are backed up with reliable security.

Seamless Funds Transfer

Users can effortlessly transfer funds to anyone in the same city, country, or internationally with a few clicks on their smartphone. Similarly, users can receive funds from anyone in their country or overseas.

Personalized Promotions

Many banking apps offer personalized discounts and promotions to users by assessing their shopping history. Users can avail of discounts and promotions on shopping, eating, travel, and many others. 

Environment Friendly

As banking apps allow users to check their account statements, this eliminates the need for printed statements on paper. Banking app development can effectively reduce paper usage and promote environmental conservation. 

Advantages for entrepreneurs/investors

Business Opportunities 

Investing in banking application development opens doors of opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors. It is a constantly growing market with an ever-expanding user base. Through investments, entrepreneurs can venture into a vast market of consumers, banks, and financial institutions and leverage numerous business opportunities to generate lucrative revenue. 

Maximized Revenue

Banking apps are a great source of revenue generation. Investors can generate revenue in various ways. You can charge users transaction fees, in-app advertisements, and forging partnerships with financial institutions. All these modes are meant to bolster revenue generation for investors.

Better Customer Engagement

If you want to boost customer engagement, invest in the banking apps. These apps increase customer engagement and advance customer loyalty as contended customers will stay loyal and turn into repeat customers.                                                                                                                                                       

Competitive Edge

Another critical benefit of banking apps is their competitive advantage. Entrepreneurs can offer innovative, user-friendly, and scalable banking app solutions that help them stand out.

Worldwide Reach

Investing in banking apps can enable entrepreneurs to extend their international reach. By creating savvy strategies, they can attract users from abroad, make inroads into the global market, and benefit from international exposure.

Banking App Development Process

Building a banking app is challenging and requires careful planning as it is a multi-stage process. The following are the key stages involved in the process. Let’s uncover them.

Conduct Research

In the initial stage, banking app developers must assess the market trends and competition. Similarly, in this stage, you will define your target audience and develop a unique selling proposition (U.S.P.) for your mobile banking app. Here, you will also create a business model for your app.

Create a Prototype

In the second stage, you must create a prototype or basic app version. It will crystallize your app’s logic, structure, and design. A prototype helps you identify and fix flaws for a fraction of the cost of repairing a defect during development. Building a prototype is an excellent way to verify the functionality and design of your app.

Security Fundamentals

For creating a banking app, ensuring proper compliance with security protocols is imperative. Unlike ordinary mobile apps, a banking app must be embedded in fully-fledged security. You must fulfill security compliance requirements such as GDPR, PSD3, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, GLBA, SOX, CFPB, etc.

UI/UX Design

In this stage, the work is performed on the UI/UX design. Ensure that your app’s design is responsive, intuitive, and user-friendly. If your UI/UX design embodies these elements, you can expect your customer to have an engaging user experience. Likewise, when designing UI/UX design for banking apps, it is also crucial that the designers provide web accessibility for these apps.

Technology Stack

The development team will choose an appropriate tech stack depending on your banking app’s scope, project requirements, and client’s budget for your banking app development project. The selection of a technology stack also depends on the app’s features, complexity, and mobile O.S.

Development

It is the core stage of your development stage. If you are developing a banking app for iOS, you will need Swift, XCode, and iOS SDK. However, if you plan to create a banking app for Android, you will require Java/Kotlin, Android Studio, and Android SDK. After completing various stages of the app, the development team performs rigorous testing to ensure that the app runs smoothly. In addition, the development team integrates your app with third-party services to make the app user-friendly and enhance customer engagement.

Release and Improve

After thorough testing, the banking is deployed on apps like Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Developers keep an eye on the whole process lest there arise any technical issues. It is always beneficial to heed audience feedback and optimize your app with new features and updates to keep up with the latest market trends.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Top 5 Banking Apps

It is crucial to know the leading banking apps in the market before you initiate the process of banking app development. Here are the top five banking apps. 

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo is the ultimate banking app. It contains every essential feature related to your banking needs in one app. It comes with bill pay, Zelle transfers, mobile check deposits, and 24/7 accessibility, protected with advanced security features. The cherry on the top is that it offers investment features such as stock trading.

Discover

Discover’s app consistently ranks as a top-performing app. It comes with a wide array of features for users’ bank accounts and credit cards. The app allows users to check their balances, view transaction history, deposit checks, and pay bills. The app also allows users to manage all of their credit card functions.

Bank of America

The Bank of America could be similar to any other banking app; however, it is Erica – its virtual banking assistant that singles it out. It is responsive, intuitive, and user-friendly, helps users with transactions and account balances, and even provides insights on user spending. 

Chase

It is considered the best full-service banking app with in-app support. It is equipped with every feature that a user can think of. Users can check balances, transfer funds, and deposit checks. However, what sets this app apart and bolsters its popularity is Chase’s in-app 24/7 support. 

Ally

Ally’s app is considered the best online app to automate savings. Like the apps mentioned earlier, Ally’s app provides users with a full suite of account management options, such as account balances, transfers, and bill payments. In addition, the app allows users to automate their savings and set debit card controls. Most importantly, It charges low fees for its services.

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How much does banking app development cost?

The banking app development cost depends on numerous factors such as the app’s complexity, the type of technology stack, integration with third-party services and API, the development team’s expertise, location, fee, and timeframe for project completion. The selection of a development team plays a vital role in influencing the development cost. Ensure the development team is cost-effective, develops top-quality apps, offers excellent customer service, and upholds ethics and integrity. 

Now, let’s assess the cost of developing a banking app based on their geographic location. If you hire a team in the U.S. or Canada, the price could go up to $200,000. If you hire a development team based in Eastern Europe, your app development cost will be around $60,000. Finally, if you hire a development team from India, your total cost will be $30,000. 

FAQ              

What is the timeframe for banking app development?

Banking apps can generally take anywhere between 6 to 12 months to complete. Depending on different factors, the timeframe can exceed. 

How do banking apps make money?

Yes, banking apps make money through numerous mediums. Commonly, they include charging fees on transactions, interest income, lending, account management fees, and partnerships with financial institutions, to name a few.

How do I promote my banking app?

You can promote your banking app by formulating user retention and marketing strategies. These include marketing campaigns, loyalty reward campaigns, and remarkable customer service. 

Senior Content Writer
Gohar Aslam

Coding Pixel

Gohar is a seasoned IT writer specializing in leading technologies. He holds a Diploma and Bachelor's degree from the University of London, with professional experience spanning over five years in the IT sector. His expertise involves a keen focus on mobile applications, web apps, blockchain, content management systems, e-commerce, and fintech. Beyond the professional field, Gohar is an avid reader and reads extensively about emerging and innovative technologies.