In Tablet Banking, Fun Matters

Tablet banking customers just wanna have fun?

Intuit Financial Services thinks so. That’s why the fintech vendor designed an iPad banking app that aims to liven up the user experience.

“People buy iPads because they are fun,” Deepti Sahi, senior product management at Intuit, tells Bank Innovation. “We wanted to make the app fun.”

The new app was widely released to FIs yesterday.

Making tablet apps “more fun”  is easier to do than when designing smartphone apps for a myriad of reasons, including the fact that there’s more real estate to work with and animation possibilities are more robust on a tablet.

Yesterday, we demoed Intuit’s tablet app to see how the company is spicing up the experience for consumers who are taking banking action. One discovery? Transitions are more exciting for the tablet banking user. For instance, a user can drag and drop the amount he wants to transfer into another account and see his money move from account to account. Intuit says creating a different experience for tablet banking is important because the use case is different than mobile banking.

Like other mobile apps, Intuit’s smartphone app design is based on one-hand use cases, such as a consumer riding the subway, a scenario that would restrict usage to one-finger swipes. Consequently, the smartphone app design is vertical and extremely  simple, Sahi says.

Meanwhile, Intuit envisions that the overall tablet use case is very different, and, therefore, it can design ways to make the consumer interaction through the app more lively. Perhaps a consumer is sitting on a couch watching TV and paying his bills or eating breakfast, while scheduling the monthly bills, Sahi says. These scenarios give room for more movement.

Though the tablet banking experience is more tactile for users, what consumers can actually do on the tablet app mirrors Intuit’s mobile banking functionality, including view account balances and account transaction history; transfer funds between eligible accounts; pay bills; locate nearby ATMs and branches; and access a financial institution’s mobile website.

But, this too, should change as technology evolves.

In the meantime, functionality for Intuit’s tablet app to hit soon includes a mechanism that will let FIs find out how their users are feeling about a specific service, Sahi tells Bank Innovation. Though Apple publishes user reviews, Intuit wants to take it one step further. The soon-to-be-released functionality will let an end-user give feedback after he makes a bill payment, for example. Merchant-funded rewards are another functionality that will soon be incorporated into the app.

The release of Intuit’s tablet app is further proof of how the device will continue to play more meaningful roles at FIs nationwide. Some major institutions like Citi already boast their own tablet apps, but there’s still a ways to go in development for the devices by FIs. Intuit hopes its third-party solution will gain traction.

“iPad tablets are here to stay,” Sahi tells Bank Innovation. “The usage of tablets has been phenomenal.”

And that should mean a lot to bankers. Indeed, digital banking customers tend to be a FIs’ most engaged customers.

“Our hypothesis is that tablets are dramatically increasing the engagement for digital banking users,” she tells Bank Innovation.

In fact, Intuit data already shows that consumers who use online and mobile banking solutions are 45% more likely to interact with their FI than those consumers who only bank online. However, customers are not staying exclusive to tablets. In two years from now, Sahi envisions that an end-user could start an action on a phone, take the second action on an iPad and finish off the job on a PC without any pain.

“Online banking is just one channel,” Sahi says. “Intuit has a focus on delivering solutions to solve financial needs across multiple needs. …The digital lifestyle is getting complicated. …Tablets will be a game changer.”

In other words, tablets can even make bankers say: party on.

Tablet banking customers just wanna have fun?

Intuit Financial Services thinks so. That’s why the fintech vendor designed an iPad banking app that aims to liven up the user experience.

“People buy iPads because they are fun,” Deepti Sahi, senior product management at Intuit, tells Bank Innovation. “We wanted to make the app fun.”

The new app was widely released to FIs yesterday.

Making tablet apps “more fun”  is easier to do than when designing smartphone apps for a myriad of reasons, including the fact that there’s more real estate to work with and animation possibilities are more robust on a tablet.

Yesterday, we demoed Intuit’s tablet app to see how the company is spicing up the experience for consumers who are taking banking action. One discovery? Transitions are more exciting for the tablet banking user. For instance, a user can drag and drop the amount he wants to transfer into another account and see his money move from account to account. Intuit says creating a different experience for tablet banking is important because the use case is different than mobile banking.

Like other mobile apps, Intuit’s smartphone app design is based on one-hand use cases, such as a consumer riding the subway, a scenario that would restrict usage to one-finger swipes. Consequently, the smartphone app design is vertical and extremely  simple, Sahi says.

Meanwhile, Intuit envisions that the overall tablet use case is very different, and, therefore, it can design ways to make the consumer interaction through the app more lively. Perhaps a consumer is sitting on a couch watching TV and paying his bills or eating breakfast, while scheduling the monthly bills, Sahi says. These scenarios give room for more movement.

Though the tablet banking experience is more tactile for users, what consumers can actually do on the tablet app mirrors Intuit’s mobile banking functionality, including view account balances and account transaction history; transfer funds between eligible accounts; pay bills; locate nearby ATMs and branches; and access a financial institution’s mobile website.

But, this too, should change as technology evolves.

In the meantime, functionality for Intuit’s tablet app to hit soon includes a mechanism that will let FIs find out how their users are feeling about a specific service, Sahi tells Bank Innovation. Though Apple publishes user reviews, Intuit wants to take it one step further. The soon-to-be-released functionality will let an end-user give feedback after he makes a bill payment, for example. Merchant-funded rewards are another functionality that will soon be incorporated into the app.

The release of Intuit’s tablet app is further proof of how the device will continue to play more meaningful roles at FIs nationwide. Some major institutions like Citi already boast their own tablet apps, but there’s still a ways to go in development for the devices by FIs. Intuit hopes its third-party solution will gain traction.

“iPad tablets are here to stay,” Sahi tells Bank Innovation. “The usage of tablets has been phenomenal.”

And that should mean a lot to bankers. Indeed, digital banking customers tend to be a FIs’ most engaged customers.

“Our hypothesis is that tablets are dramatically increasing the engagement for digital banking users,” she tells Bank Innovation.

In fact, Intuit data already shows that consumers who use online and mobile banking solutions are 45% more likely to interact with their FI than those consumers who only bank online. However, customers are not staying exclusive to tablets. In two years from now, Sahi envisions that an end-user could start an action on a phone, take the second action on an iPad and finish off the job on a PC without any pain.

“Online banking is just one channel,” Sahi says. “Intuit has a focus on delivering solutions to solve financial needs across multiple needs. …The digital lifestyle is getting complicated. …Tablets will be a game changer.”

In other words, tablets can even make bankers say: party on.