About
A new generation mobile banking app designed by our customers, for our customers, simplifying banking and delivering all their needs in the palm of their hand, while also improving our internal end-to-end design & delivery process.
Innovation presentation
Concept and objectives
AIB’s purpose is “to back our Customers to achieve their dreams and ambitions”, however by mid-July 2015, we heard growing customer frustration with our App, so we decided to start again.
Reasons behind
The key reasons for our customer’s frustration:
- Key Features and Products missing
- Too many clicks
- No option for new customers to on-board
- Lots of friction
State of competition
AIB is the digital leader in the Irish market (digital penetration >60%), however the rapid emergence of N26 / Revolut and Irish consumers love of their smartphone, meant there was no room for complacency. Streamlined on-boarding and payments drove higher customer expectations.
Sources of inspiration
Our inspiration is inherently driven by our customer pain points. We are also inspired by new technology, peer banks, other industries and great FinTechs, which we constantly monitor.
Departments involved
The team worked collaboratively with IT and stakeholders throughout the bank (Payments, Products, Support, Compliance etc.), external industry benchmarking firms, UX consultants, and most importantly, with our customers. Testing and research is central to on-going App development. Every new feature is tested, redesigned and retested.
Main results so far
- Over 870,000 AIB customers now using the mobile app on a daily basis
- Transaction volumes accelerating (+39%)
- Industry leading sales penetration (50% of loan applications on Mobile)
- Extensive services including Touch ID, Quick Balance, Open Payments, integrated Apple Pay, Product Sales and the ability for new customers to open an account remotely
Uniqueness of the project
There is not one single aspect of the AIB Mobile App project which is unique in its own right. However the combination of activities and deliverables at play are very innovative for a traditional bank. The combination of people / process and Technology changes were significant and the need to action all these which maintaining our normal service delivery levels made this a high risk initiative. The key changes aspects are:
Activity: Obsessive customer focus – we needed to ensure we were actually addressing real and not perceived customer issues. Key goal was to remove additional steps and friction. We also needed to ensure customers understand what we are offering. In terms of risk, it was seen as high - more typical of a Neo Bank and very new thinking for a Bank. Our Roadmap developments were in effect driven by Customer priorities and we needed to recruit new UI / UX capability. This is visible through our Quickbalance feature – now no need to login ( 90% of previous logins just to get a balance) and there has been massive adoption.
Activity: Nothing released until proven with Customer Testing – we wanted to ensure we had high levels of adoption for all features released to maximise investment value. The risk was seen as medium - concerns this would introduce additional cost and rollout delays. The delivered outcome is now seen via our Cards Hub which is totally redesigned based on customer feedback and confusion over Card status.
Activity: Collaborative IT & Business Agile development lifecycle – we needed to remove bottlenecks and improve how quickly we can identify and solve a customer pain point leveraging all the brainpower in the room. We worked with an embedded team from Thoughtworks who are experts in this area to accelerate our transformation. It was a medium risk - it challenged the traditional bank HR structures and there was some reluctance from internal teams who were comfortable with Waterfall from planning to delivery. The net result was that we moved from a quarterly App release cycle to a 4-6 week release cycle.
Activity: Tackle the complex issues which the customers have prioritised for Mobile delivery - Customers called out specific frustration around the ease of making a new payment (without a Card Reader) and for new customers, opening an Account without the need to visit a branch. We identified and integrated a number of key FinTech partners to address these complex solution areas: InAuth (Security & Authentication) and ID Now (Remote on-boarding). The risk was seen as high - as these were unproven vendors at early stage in the cycle when engaged and there were concerns that they may not deliver their complex solution. There was also significant concerns from Compliance / AML / Risk / Fraud stakeholders across the bank. Out of these partnerships we delivered Open Payments – Pay up to €1K to a new person without the need for a Card Reader and New To Bank – Download the app and open your new A/c remotely with just your Passport and your face.
Activity: Outcome based metrics – we migrated from delivery focus to outcome focus, i.e. are customers using the feature, in what volumes, what improvements can be made. The risk was seen as medium – challenge to traditional project based investment and delivery to keep resources on the pitch post-delivery to maximise adoption. We have now delivered Travel Insurance and it’s sales journey has been optimised futher post rollout.
The success of this initiative is evident now, not only in terms of customer adoption, but also in terms of how the people and process changes have been adopted across the broader bank.
