US Bank’s new app features could drive greater mobile engagement (USB)

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US Bank has announced that it is adding new features to its US Bank Mobile App including the option to use the app in Spanish and availability on Android devices. The news comes around four months after the bank completely overhauled its app with the goal of offering a mobile banking experience informed by research into how people use their mobile apps and consumer needs.

As part of the upgrade, US Bank added new "Insights" — a feature that launched in April and is gaining quick adoption. Insights is a tool that offers customers an AI-driven personalized feed of key financial information, such as cash flow analyses at the end of the month, warnings about potential duplicate transaction charges, or a breakdown of spending by category.

US Bank says that in the four months since the feature’s launch, it has delivered over 100 million of these insights to customers, and it makes sense that they would be popular: Personal finance management features are well-regarded by customers. For example, 66% of mobile banking users who responded to Business Insider Intelligence’s Mobile Banking Competitive Edge study (Enterprise only) said the ability to view spending within specific date ranges would "very" or "extremely" valuable.

A couple of other enhancements of note include:

New account enrollment options. The bank has added new offerings to its marketplace, such as home equity loan, savings, and investment products in an effort to make it easier for prospective customers to digitally apply for new accounts. These new offerings can help US Bank stay ahead of the global game too: while 76% of personal banking products globally can be applied for digitally, this number shrinks for more complex banking products (dropping to 49% for wealth management, for example), per a study from Temenos.
Tools for US Bank credit cards. These include the ability to use the US Bank app to lock and unlock credit cards, which is a very popular security feature for payment cards. Eighty percent of mobile banking users who responded to Business Insider Intelligence’s Mobile Banking Competitive Edge study (Enterprise only) said that placing a temporary hold on a credit or debit card was an "extremely" or "very" valuable feature, making it the most valued tool examined in the security and control category.

For US Bank, the theme of this upgrade may be a push to expand the accessibility of mobile banking features for its customers. Several of the enhancements introduced by this update center on making the mobile banking experience as widely accessible as possible, such as rolling out an Android version, offering a Spanish language option for the first time, or making a greater number of products available for enrollment through the app.

And the more accessible the bank’s mobile features are to its customers, the better chance it has elevate its percentage of mobile active customers: While 72% of its customers are digitally engaged, only half are engaging via the mobile channel. That means only 69% of digitally engaged US Bank customers use mobile, compared to 79% at Wells Fargo, and 75% at Bank of America.

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