Why don’t Indian banks work on improving the UI of their mobile apps?

I use only one mobile app from an Indian bank (herewith called “BankPe”). It has better UI today than when I onboarded it a couple of years ago. So this bank has definitely worked on improving the UI of its mobile app.

Since BankPe is a mobile payment app, the inevitable comparison arises with competing mobile payment apps from nonbank fintechs.

BankPe’s UI may be inferior to the UI of PayTM, the largest nonbank fintech in India, but it is definitely superior to the UI of many second-rung nonbank fintechs in India like Google Pay, MobiKwik and PhonePe.

To that extent, with my datapoint of one bank mobile app, I disagree with the basic premise of the question.

Assuming that you might be talking with a broader experience, there are a couple of reasons why there will always be a glass ceiling in the UI of bank mobile apps like BankPe:

#1. To make a BankPe payment, I need to enter the password each time. Whereas I can make a PayTM payment without entering a password. The difference arises because PayTM keeps me logged in to the app until I log out whereas BankPe logs me out automatically after a few moments of inactivity. Since it’s a PITA to enter an 8 character password that is a combination of letters, number and special characters (say Pa$sw0rd123) into a virtual keyboard, I rate PayTM’s UI superior to BankPe’s UI. BankPe complies with RBI mandate that every payment must require a password but, in the process, takes a beating on UX whereas I suspect that PayTM does not, and gains brownie points on UX. A bank can’t get away by violating an RBI mandate. Ergo there’s a natural limit to which a bank mobile app can improve UI / UX if the improvement needs bending some rules.

#2. Banks launched mobile apps primarily in the context of mobilizing desktop online banking, which itself they launched to reduce operational costs entailed by branch banking. The focus on UX came about later. Arguably, their UX will always lag nonbank fintechs, who entered the market with superior UX as their core value proposition.

#3. As banks are regulated entities and custodians of public money, they have a lot more at stake if something goes wrong with their systems. Nonbank fintechs are not regulated and can take more risks. If a bank does a software update and its ATMs stop working, there will be a huge outcry among the public and the regulator will rap the bank on the knuckles for the outage. I doubt if anything like that will happen if a fintech did a software update and its app stopped working momentarily. As a result, all bank software – not just their mobile apps – undergo a longer cycle of testing and hence have longer release cycles. Therefore, to make the same UI improvement in their mobile – or any other – app, banks will inevitably take more time than nonbank fintechs.

Therefore, for the forseeable future, banks will not be able to catch up with nonbank fintechs vis-a-vis the UI and UX of their mobile apps (or any other software).

That said, I find the usability of bank apps to be far better than the usability of apps from many other industries. Every time I manage to log in to the online portal of my TELCOs, I thank the almighty. I’ve never ever been able to successfully order my ThinkPad laptop from IBM / Lenovo’s website. +20 years after they predicated that the Internet would kill the middleman, I still can’t buy a cake of Dove soap from Unilever’s website. Most manufacturers don’t even bother with apps and have left their online business entirely to middleman like ecommerce companies.

PS: The question mentioned India, so my answer mentioned India. But much of what I’ve said is valid for all countries.