How to maximise Open Banking adoption using UX principles

Covid has accelerated the adoption of Open Banking services with OBIE reporting the doubling of users in just 6 months to 2 million people.

This still only represents about 3% of the UK population, so although gathering pace, it’s clear that there still seems to be a long way to go.

The biggest stumbling blocks seem to be:

• Trust with personal data - a recent YouGov survey Bud commissioned showed that whilst 60% of UK adults trusted banks with their personal data, 15% trusted an investment, insurance or loan company, and only 6% trusted an online financial services provider.
• Lack of fair value exchange - for example, banks have launched the ability to add other bank accounts but with no clear value to the user, the uptake has been low.
• 90-day re-authentication window – with a user having to relink their account, it causes major friction for the user. You can, however, use this is as a metric to measure how valuable a user finds your service.

“only 6% of UK adults trusted online financial services providers with their personal data”

Designing for trust

6% of UK adults trusted online financial services with their data, but that increases to 22% if we ask adults who already use online services such as digital brokers, Robo advisors, money management apps. This could suggest that familiarity, better user experiences and confidence in these services play a big part in increasing trust.

With the products Bud has out in the market, we’ve learned how they are perceived by end-users and how we can start to use a framework to help us identify potential enablers to design a better experience to help build trust with your end-users.

Case studies

• Payments initiation service (PIS) - These new payment methods will most likely be presented alongside more traditional payment methods and so we need to be mindful of how users will compare their options. We ran a user testing study which showed that user overwhelmingly preferred using PIS over traditional payment methods but that was only after they tried it. Initially, they tended to gravitate towards the familiar, citing the Direct Debit logo as something they trusted, even though they knew the experience would be worse or it would take days rather than seconds to make a payment.
• Loan application journey - Similar to payments, using Open Banking to speed up the application process is still very new to users and so initially they could opt to upload a bank statement or fill in a 5-page form instead of linking their bank accounts in a few seconds.
• Bud app - Having an app in the market allows us to test how much users trust sharing their financial information. By being transparent about the steps and data shared has helped us get to a point where the average amount of accounts added per user is more above two. Conversion for adding an account flow on the app is 73%.

3 principles for maximising OB uptake:

• Familiarity and trust - Customers are aware of the risks of sharing personal information and as expected some types of customer, particularly older demographics may initially express cautiousness and nervousness.
  -  Keep the entrance of the journey as familiar as possible.
  -  Try not to introduce new language or phrases they hadn’t heard of.
• Clear value exchange - In new transactional scenarios where customers are being encouraged to share personal information it is important to communicate the benefits of a new service.
  -  Show the user how long each option will take
  -  Be really clear about the user benefit to choosing the right option

• Transparency - Communicating the benefits is important, but being explicitly clear on what is required from the customer, why it is required, and for what purposes is just as important. Customers need to be able to make an informed decision and, in turn, understand the consequences of that decision.