Regular readers would be well aware that we at iSky Research have long considered New Zealand to be one of the most innovative, and in that way under-appreciated digital banking market places in the world. Frequently experimenting, challenging and pushing the boundaries of digital banking CX, the relatively small island nation of just over four-and-a-half million people has digital banking channels that rank amongst some of the most comprehensive in terms of functionality and design, that we have seen around the world. When it comes to offering mobile home lending applications, New Zealand is again over-represented in a global cohort of some of the largest banks in the region and the world. Remarkably, amongst the five major banks in New Zealand (i.e. BNZ, Westpac, ANZ, ASB and Kiwibank), three are currently offering home lending applications that are initiated in the mobile app. This number is even more exceptional when you consider that four of those five banks are subsidiaries of the 'Big Four' Australian banks, none of which currently offer home lending applications in their mobile apps. Amongst 27 banks that we looked at, hailing from the US, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, UK, New Zealand and elsewhere, only five offered a form of mobile app based home lending application - the remaining two being USAA and Bank of America, both in the US. Below we have provided a video of the application process found in each, with the exception of USAA due to a limitation with our customer profile. We will leave it to readers to decide which they see as the 'best', but some observations of our experiences are as follows:
- Two application processes were native (ANZ and Westpac), whilst two used either an emulated browser (Bank of America) or secure browser (ASB) experience
- Westpac was the only application that we believed was sufficiently comprehensive, or gave outward indication that a follow up contact would not be required to generate an initial outcome (e.g. for qualification)
- The Westpac experience 'felt' the easiest to navigate, with a single-page accordion design having been implemented to positive effect
- All four indicated that the customer was ultimately submitting an application at the end of the process, regardless of the bank's intention to follow up with the customer or elsewise
We welcome your thoughts and comments on which experience you think was the best, and if you would like to see more on these or any of the other banks we have access to, please contact us today. See more with iSky Research. N.B. All videos captured on 19 December 2017, using an iPhone X https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbJOgZ5-qkM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZIqlpuWbK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYhGO-d9Eow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YO1TYeN4hio