May 20, 2024

How to Create a Banking App: A Comprehensive Guide

We live in an ever-changing world of technologies, open boundaries, and possibilities. No wonder that the rapidly evolving banking landscape adopts mobile applications. They become essential tools to drive operational efficiency and meet the client’s demands. Modern consumers expect real-time access to make payments, manage their finances, and get notifications. They want instant services and more personalized and efficient experiences.

Brief Overview of the Importance of Banking Apps in Modern Finance

The banks progressively move towards mobile banking and mobile-focused solutions. The users admit they use banking apps most often among various financial applications. The figures are amazing. Almost 100% of Generation Z and Millennials utilize mobile banking for multifaceted purposes. They check balances, monitor their credit score, and deposit checks. Gen X (86.5%) and Boomers (69.5%) show less activity, yet these groups are still in the majority.

More than that, by 2030, the revenue across the market of mobile banking is projected to reach $1.87 billion. It's going to grow at a CAGR of 11.7%. There is a revenue to get from banks and financial institutions in this sphere that is stupid to lose.

Today we focus on how to create a banking application and how both consumers and financial institutions can benefit from its transformative power. Let’s proceed to the details.

Growing trend of digital banking and its benefits

To thrive in the modern digital age banking sphere needs strategic foresight and innovative software solutions. The trend for mobile banking redefines the financial industry. It embraces tech innovations and addresses operational efficiency intricacies. At the same time, it enhances the transparency and security of the consumers allowing seamless access to their funds, and banking services, and convenient, streamlined, and secure financial operations right from their smartphones anytime 24/7, and from anywhere.

Why build a mobile banking app?

To be more precise in enumerating the benefits of mobile banking solutions development. Let’s look at them from the users’ and bank’s side.

Advantages for users comprise:

• Convenience: fast and secure access to the bank account round the clock,
• Better control over finances,
• Instant money transfer and transactions,
• Extensive functionality,
• User-friendly UI,
• Expense management and tracking,
• Notification set up,
• Cashback option.

Mobile software brings the following benefits to banking institutions:

• Cost efficiency through lower dependence on physical establishments, personnel, paper-based documents, and operational costs,
• Continuous innovation (technologies, features, and services) and staying in line with the latest market trends,
• Streamlined operations because of automated routine tasks,
• User convenience, higher user satisfaction, and consequently loyalty,
• Broader client outreach, because the customer base can be expanded with remote users, while products and services can be offered directly in the application,
• Informed strategy formation due to accessibility of data and real-time insights into user info and transaction details,
• Integration possibilities with various payment channels and financial platforms,
• Robust security through encryption implementation, multi-layered verification, and anti-fraud measures.

So, we guess you have no doubts anymore that the importance of banking apps is growing. Whether you are an established banking service provider or just entering the market, to stay competitive in this dynamic and evolving industry you need to figure out how to create a mobile banking application to meet your clients' needs. To give you more insights into the possibilities, we’ll speak about the different types of mobile solutions for the banking sphere.

Types of Mobile Banking Apps

As of today, mobile banking solutions comprise not only apps as they are but also some other versions. The main of them we describe below.

SMS

SMS banking is realized via text messages, which is a sign-up option. The users can then enquire about account balances, review abridged account statements, request current interest and foreign currency exchange rates, transfer limited amounts of money, and block debit or credit cards through specific SMS commands. Each bank has its own list of commands for the purpose.

Since the operations are initiated via SMS, a client does not necessarily need a smartphone or internet connection to use SMS banking.

Mobile Banking via USSD

USSD - Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, or quick codes as they are called, are used by mobile phones for communication. So, USSD banking also does not require an internet connection or a smartphone.

A user can request the menu of banking services with specific shortcut combinations and click on ‘send’. Then they can proceed with balance checking, mini statement requests, etc.

App-based

App-based banking is a service in the form of a mobile app designed by the bank and for the clients of this bank. Through a mobile user interface, customers can log into their profiles, navigate menus, locate bank branches and ATMs, or manage their finances on the go. They can also access customer service via chat or a phone call.

Sometimes banks offer diverse apps for different services. There are apps for checking account balances, paying bills, transferring funds, etc. A user can download one or several applications according to their needs and purposes.

However, it’s always more convenient to have a solution that serves as a one-stop shop for all user needs. So, let’s find out the core features of a banking app.

The Core Features of Banking Apps

To decide how to create a mobile banking app, you should make up your mind as to the features you want to implement in it. These features will prompt you on the tech stack to choose for your solution and consequently the way and methods of development.

Verification and authorization

Banks must use advanced security measures to comply with strict industry regulations. So, multi-factor authentication is a preferred feature for mobile banking applications. What is more, biometric authentication data (fingerprint or face ID) is also often used for account access. Secure authorization and verification functionality should become your first concern during mobile banking software development.

Transaction management

Account and transaction management should comprise the possibilities to check balance, view transaction history, deposit funds, and make payments and money transfers. Going a bit further, you can offer your users the option of scheduling regular payments, managing loans, and even paying bills.

Customer support

Customer support always adds up a sense of confidence. It is a crucial factor in everything finance-related. So, when developing a banking app consider real-time assistance with transactions, if there is a need for a user and in-app chat support. It’s reasonable also to have integration with other channels of communication.

More than that, to get a loyal audience, allow your users to customize their profiles and choose preferences. Thus, you can provide more personalized support based on your client’s individual needs.

Geolocation

Geolocation API integration will help your customers locate nearby terminals, ATMs, and bank branches. At the same time, it’s a vital feature to detect fraud or the reason for an alert if the mobile app operates from a suspicious location.

NFC

This relatively new technology allows contactless payments. Most modern customers have already got used to it. Today we can speak about NFC as a core feature for a banking app.

Internet payments

Lots of modern banks allow in-app payments through popular payment systems, like Stripe, PayPal, etc. You should offer these options to your users to be in trend.

Push notifications

It’s a critical feature for urgent messages and a useful one for regular notifications. The app can not be active all the time. Push notifications can inform of the account status changes. They can ask to authorize a scheduled transaction confirmation, to prevent fraud, or double payment, for instance.

The core functionality is undoubtedly important for a good user experience, convenience, app reliability, and security as well as for regulations compliance. However, to beat your competitors, you should supplement the robust core functionality with nice-to-have advanced features. They will enhance the service of your platform. Let’s turn our eyes to them.

Advanced Features

Unique value-added functionality can become a decisive factor for customers to try your product and stay with you. So, to retain your clients consider the implementation of the following features.

Chatbot and voice assistants

Such a functionality contributes to a more user-friendly interface and enhanced user experience. Nowadays, chatbots can handle up to 80% of routine tasks and customer queries in real time.

On the one hand, chatbots can cope with a great number of queries at a time, offering quick solutions and prompt responses to clients. Voice assistants are good helping hands to users who lack technological proficiency or possibly have certain disabilities. You can thus enlarge your user base. On the other hand, such chats and voice assistants save time and human effort for your personnel.

Expense trackers

Lots of people nowadays are trying to master financial awareness and get a comprehensive overview of financial behavior and spending habits. So, by allowing your clients to track and manage their expenses and save more, you'll attract those who are eager to master financial control and planning. Implement the possibility to categorize transactions, set spending limits, generate reports, and optimize spending, and your clients will appreciate this.

Cashback services

Cashbacks create loyalty and engagement. Implementing it you will turn your banking app into a rewarding monetary tool. In such a way you can encourage customers to use your mobile application consistently. It will also enhance the attractiveness and overall value of the mobile banking experience.

Personalized offers

Personalized offers to customers can become your win-win scenario. So, consider targeted discount generation, exclusive deals offering, cashback rewards, and other attractive options covering the interests of your app users. To gather the user data and understand the key spending patterns or preferences, you’ll need to implement ML and AI-powered algorithms.

Fraud alerts

Fraud alerts are something extremely important nowadays. Consider push notifications to enhance security. Make sure your clients are notified of potential fraud or suspective activity as quickly as possible.

Bill-splitting

This feature is useful in modern social settings when a person needs to divide expenses with friends, colleagues, or family. Splitting bills promotes an easy settlement of shared bills. It allows one to view the parties’ contributions, send reminders, and settle debts right in the app.

Integration with wearables

In the era of wearables, you can not miss the chance to allow your clients to access the necessary info effortlessly and instantaneously on their wearable devices. What is more, processing transactions right from the wearable and payments through NFC technology will surely become your competitive advantage.

Cash Withdrawal without a bank card

A good idea is to allow your banking software users to withdraw funds from ATMs through the confirmation in the app. It will prevent them from carrying an ATM card with them all the time.

Crypto Wallets

Crypto is a modern trend and the future that is already here. If your clients show interest in crypto assets, it’s wise to partner with at least major exchanges of Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.

Why Building a Banking App May be Tough?

When questioning how to create a bank application, you should also think about what challenges can await you in this way. We are going to deal with this a bit and show you how to handle the difficulties.

Regulatory requirements, security, and data privacy of your customers should be your first and foremost concerns. Banking software has to comply with a large number of regulations. Serious financial penalties threaten those who fail to implement this. So, you should partner with software vendors who are security-minded and aware of the regulations due.

An intuitive and user-friendly interface with seamless onboarding should also be your constant focus. A banking app is used by various users, but not all of them are tech-savvy. It may become a challenge not to overload the interface with unnecessary elements and make it intuitive. However, UI/UX designers with relative expertise and experience will prompt you the right answers.

Anti-money laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) tools are a must. You have to implement them, otherwise you may face financial penalties. To exclude this choose the team of developers who know how to build a mobile banking app with a really reliable system of user authentication and authorization.

The ability to block payments should be instantaneous. Make sure the users can connect to their accounting system and block the bank card in no time in case of suspicious circumstances.

6 Steps to Building a Mobile Banking App

At Stfalcon we know already how to create a bank application. Although our team follows the more or less standard software development procedure, banking software may be different.

Research

The research is realized at the discovery phase. That’s the time devoted to careful investigations of the market, leaders and outsiders, products available, user needs, pain points, and expectations that are not satisfied.

Having gained a comprehensive understanding of the market and target audience, you can compile a list of specifications for your future banking app. At Stfalcon we do it all for our clients and just provide them with the results and our proposals. Trust the discovery to our company and we’ll tell you how to make a mobile banking app most effectively.

Build and verify a prototype

A complex mechanism of a banking app contains multiple features. It’s rather difficult to develop it from scratch. So, we advise you to make a prototype. Prototypes help to visualize the interface and functionality of the app-to-be. They help to establish effective communication between the development team and the stakeholders.

What’s more, by testing a prototype, the developers can test the idea with a target audience. They can validate tech feasibility, evaluate performance, and spot bottlenecks if there are any. The latter can be addressed at an early stage. A prototype is flexible and relatively cheap because it requires 10x fewer resources.

So, you can modify it and remove bugs right away without much expense. After approving a prototype you can proceed to developing a solution with a proven product-market fit.

Lay the groundwork for security

At this stage, you should make sure your banking app meets all the security standards, regulations, and data protection laws. The minimum regulatory requirements list contains GDPR, PSD2 , PCI DSS, and CCPA. However, each country has its regulations, so be sure to check all the legal nuances.

Design the UI/UX

Before you take up the UI\UX design of your banking application, business logic and functionality should be implemented in full. We advise to follow a holistic approach to UI/UX:

• Choose clear menus.
• Feature simplified navigation.
• Make sure your clients can access all the essential services.

Keep in mind that web accessibility is legislatively regulated in some countries. Check the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2.

Develop the app

As soon as your prototype is developed and tested, your UI/UX is well-defined, and the next stage comes. It's the stage of translating the conceptualized design and charted requirements into a mobile app. The development starts with building the server-side logic, business rules implementation, and integration of the APIs. They enable the app’s functionality.

Then the developers deal with UI/UX to ensure a seamless user experience. Testing, security vulnerability improvements, and handling of all the usability issues also belong to this stage. Keep contact with the development team throughout the process to make sure the software will meet your expectations.

Release and maintain

When testing is completed and the majority of issues are handled, the application is launched. It's often uploaded into Google Play and AppStore. Here the next sage begins. On the one hand, you should keep in mind to pay for such technical aspects as server capacity, integration with payment gateways, support for some technologies, etc.

On the other hand, the growing number of users will detect new issues and set new requirements forward. Be ready for that. Regular updates and innovations are what will always keep your application competitive. We know that the question of costs is the important question you are impatient to ask. Just keep reading and we’ll answer it below.

How Much Does it Cost to Make a Mobile Banking App?

The budget for a software solution is always subject to many aspects. They are the hierarchy of the workflows and their complexity, tech stack, 3rd party integrations. The more logical blocks an app contains, the more difficult the task is and the more specialists may be required. When developing for Android, you should keep in mind how to make a mobile banking app that operates on variable devices.

The form of interaction with the developers and the chosen price format also matter. If you hire a dedicated development team for a rather simple solution, you can expect to start from around $100000. However, the more realistic budget for a competitive product is $500000. The sky is the limit for a complex banking app development.

Another popular question is how long does it take to build a banking app. The first customer-ready MVP development can take between 6 and 12 months. Then follows about a year of full-fledged product development.

Considering long-term investment for a banking app, keep in mind the figure of around a million US dollars. In the ever-developing world, ongoing yearly maintenance and updates should be regular to keep the market.

Create a Mobile Banking App with Stfalcon

If you are considering mobile banking app development, Stfalcon is your right choice of partner. Our developers have extensive expertise gained from multifaceted projects for clients worldwide.

Conclusion

If you are already excited about the idea, but still hesitate about how to build a banking app, contact a Stfalcon expert. Together you can discuss the concept and the possibilities in detail. Later on, our company can turn it into a top-level experience for your users. Nowadays, banking applications bridge the gap between ordinary banking practices and user expectations of contemporaneity. So, if you are ready to become a game changer and drive innovations today, let’s discuss it.

There are some popular questions we get as to banking app development. Keep reading to find the answers.