What the challenger banks did differently: a study into the UX of banking.
Monzo, Revolut and Starling—often called the challenger banks—have built billion-dollar businesses around the belief that they offer the best overall banking experience.
But are they actually any better, or is it all clever marketing? To answer that question I opened 12 real bank accounts, and logged everything.
Each chapter provides a forensic analysis of a particular feature or user journey.
But more importantly, I’ve highlighted what can we all learn from the challenger banks, and used real examples to teach you how to craft better experiences in the future.
CHAPTER 1
It took 18x longer to open an account with HSBC that it did with Monzo.
CHAPTER 2
Payment notifications were at least 2x faster with the challenger banks, and in some cases 100x faster.
CHAPTER 3
There were the only 3 banks to send notifications when someone attempted to use a frozen card.
CHAPTER 4
It cost at least £20 to send £1 (GBP) to a US bank (USD) with three banks.
CHAPTER 5
It took nearly 4x longer to authorise an Open Banking payment with Lloyds than it did with Starling.
CHAPTER 6
Revolut only ever replied to 20% of my live chat support messages, and don’t have a phone line.
A must read for Banking and UX nerds out there from @PeteRamsey https://t.co/QZOxhJlMj9
— Richard Spink (@spinkyhove) May 22, 2020
The graphic below tells the story#banking #accountopening #fintech pic.twitter.com/rvI1ejmoEU
Fantastic deep dive on the current state of challenger bank UX 🕵️♀️ https://t.co/3FS3QZngEN
— James (@jamesdevonport) May 21, 2020
Great deep dive on UK bank accounts and the current state of their UX. Looking forward to the series!
— Bruno Tambosso (@brunotambosso) May 23, 2020
via @builtformars // @PeteRamsey https://t.co/kfwfADUOXb
A must read for Banking and UX nerds out there from @PeteRamsey https://t.co/zCFJPDjHyA
— Mike Booth (@MikeESBooth) May 25, 2020
No research could be crisper in explaining the sense of "Frictionless experience" and Frictionless IT that I kept talking about for years. Must-read and must-subscribe. > "What the challenger banks did differently" by @PeteRamsey https://t.co/zWmxpYG0LT
— Alessandro Perilli ✪ AI￨Automation￨Cybersecurity (@giano) May 21, 2020
Speed is everything ⚡️ pic.twitter.com/oJGeqKBVdb
— Chad West (@ChadWestTweets) May 26, 2020
@Builtformars did an incredible job on analyzing the UX of #challengerbanks, looking forward to reading more #payments https://t.co/rQtRta3mDV
— Patti Hewitt (@PaymentGal) May 22, 2020
Superb UX analysis of opening an account with 12 banks, bravo @PeteRamsey @builtformars. https://t.co/iKqGFeAIYS Speed and simplicity are everything.
— Chris Crossley (@chriscrossley) May 26, 2020
This should be required reading by every exec at traditional banks. Fantastic work
— Alex Barkley (@alexfintec) May 25, 2020
Brilliant effort of documenting sweating the details by comparing UX across UK challenger banks. https://t.co/dxbgfQmrkg
— 👋 David Duckworth (@davidduckworth_) May 21, 2020
Fascinating project and great graph @builtformars https://t.co/yNrw0XseWm pic.twitter.com/3FqontDhhD
— Jonny Stanton (@JonnyStanton) May 21, 2020
Anyone working for any of the UK banks should make sure they read all of this - https://t.co/sFa5ktaWc2
— Farhan Lalji (@farhanlalji) May 22, 2020
The below makes for an interesting read on challenger banks, with a step by step comparison of them 👉
— Megan (@MeganCaywood) May 25, 2020
Only the first chapter in the 6-part comparison series has been published so far (see here: https://t.co/yQWWgBQWiX) but appreciated the shoutout to @Barclays 😄 https://t.co/r5BqFSFIcB pic.twitter.com/1dKmcUGj7b
Great piece by @builtformars on the set-up user experience of 12 different UK banks https://t.co/IHgDIi9qRl
— Alex Blakoe (@ablakoe) May 23, 2020
This analysis of the UX of creating accounts with a dozen banks is brilliant - thanks to @PeteRamsey @builtformars #userjourney #CustomerExperience https://t.co/lS70jCixJr
— Ben Brabyn (@BenBrabyn) May 26, 2020
Helping people build better user experiences.
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