A few words before the travel begins
Eulerr.com in collaboration with Ohmyinterface.com decided to find banks with the best UX/UI all around the world.
We have analyzed the banks from Forbes Global 2000 list and enriched the list with banks from separate countries which weren’t mentioned.
Together, we will visit 24 countries at all and more than 800 banks’ sites.
China, India, USA, Russia, Europe, South Africa, Turkey and others.
The research is important because
- the banks are extremely conservative in everything. So the changes appear really slowly.
- There is an opinion that from one region to another there are lots of differences. You can often hear something like:
“buying patterns in different countries are different” - The trandmakers are USA and Europe. Can other countries keep up with them?
Are this statements true or not? After finishing this article you will find the answers.
There are the characteristics of interface quality which we highlighted :
- The quality of image (UI)
- User-friendly interface (UX, Usability)
- Product offering (simplicity, value proposition).
Facing the linguistic barrier we didn’t stop and used the Google Translate and make some conclusions based on a simple logic.
Well, here are the examples of the best banks all around the world! And out first stop is Asia and Oceania.
China
Everyone feel interest about what’s going on in China. Frankly speaking, they are very far from the perfect results. The largest company in the world and also the largest bank in China looks a bit mediocre.
It’s not that bad, but we’ve expected to see something more… over the frontier of innovations, maybe.
How to explain such a bad UI/UX? We suppose, that the weak competitive environment is the reason. None of the banks are to show something awesome to ordinary people. The main business here is focused on corporate segment. Therefore, most of sites are the landing pages without any online services.
But everything is not as bad as it seems. For example, the China Citic Bank sitefollows the main trends. The design level is comparable with an American and European colleagues.
Interesting fact is that all the Chinese banks sites have the functionality for visitors to communicate in WeChat. People in China believe that it’s suitable to do business without a site. However, you should have a WeChat to communicate with customers. Maybe, that is the real reason of week UX level? Who knows.
Japan
Next place to visit is land of the rising sun. Again we had lots of expectations, because Japan is also the land of high technologies.
Unpredictably, the level of digital banking is low again. It feels like the development of web technologies has stopped after 2010.
One of the best sites is http://www.smbc.co.jp/global/
Looks boring, we won’t stay here no longer!
India
By different statistics, more than 5 millions of IT specialists live in India. I thought the level of bank sites would be comparable to the American tops.
But i made a mistake again.
This is an example of above the average level bank site:
Sites like these are the top level ones:
Everything is really nice. Looks like a good European bank.
It should be mentioned that Indians used widely spread projecting and design patterns as:
- Card-Based design
- Bootstrap PSD grid
- Light colors that relax user.
South Korea
Finally! These guys use non-standard approach!
That was my first thoughts after visiting amazing site of KB Financial Group. Very qualitative!
The Leading bank is the part of KB Financial group. Looks very nice also but the financial group’s site is better.
Unfortunately, the euphoria after finding such a promising resource changed to disappointment. KB was the only well-designed bank site we found in South Korea. Everything else came right from the past century!
Australia
Oh, My! Australians are alive! The UI/UX design in banking sphere here is cool! I can see that someone gives trands, which are followed by the rest of developers.
There are no completely new ideas, but there are a lot of worthy digital resources:
- https://www.ubank.com.au/
- https://www.racq.com.au/banking
- https://www.commbank.com.au/ — this is my favourite one!
Australian banks are really client-oriented. They are trying to use the simple and exact phrases that would be clear for their customers. The clients may make a pragmatic decisions, which is great for them and for bank also. The more useful services and functions bank have, the more satisfied clients and, accordingly, profits bank have.
Relationships built on the principle win-win are the best for business!
New technologies are actively used in Australian digital banking!
To sum up:
Developers are trying to follow universal design patterns all over the world. The revolution happens always. Never mind, sooner or later, but most of banks (about 90%) have developed the adaptive sites or even mobile applications.
If this is not a progress, I don’t know what is!
Have a projects in banking? Pay attention to Australian and Indian online services!
Especially Australia shows the unbelievable level of banking projects quality!
Brief description of design patterns:
- Card-Based banks sites design is a common practice
- Adaptive design is a common practice too. Haven’t got a mobile version of your site? You are looser.
- There is a simple rule: “ The less words you have on main screen the better your business going ”.
You shouldn’t place all the important information at one place! People do know how to scroll! The bank’s site is not a newspaper with a small font size anymore! - Clear product offerings.
- The fusion between internet bank and site is not possible, while they are two different subjects located in different domains.
In next episode…
- Article about European banks
- Accent on Digital Banking
In third (final for now) episode.
- American banks
