In the technology-driven world we now live in, consumers are becoming more attracted to the ease of digital interactions over face-to-face human interactions for managing their money and paying bills. Opening a new account, setting up a direct debit, and even resolving disputes, are now more commonly performed via an app than face-to-face at a branch. A 2017 Roy Morgan report shows an increase of 71.8% (3.47 million users) in mobile banking over a four year period (2013-2017), highlighting how consumers are jumping on newer tech-driven ways of managing money for their speed, security and personalisation. This growing consumer reliance on apps puts increasing pressure on financial institutions to ensure a seamless and efficient experience. In fact, AppDynamics' 2017 App Attention Index revealed that 53% of users would delete an app or abandon a website due to slow or buggy performance after just one attempt. If an application does not meet the needs of a customer, confidence and loyalty with the institution can be compromised, leading to declining revenue impact.

How trust and performance are connected

Research from Telstra suggests trust, relationships and technology form the new trinity for connecting with millennials. Additionally, banks are seeing competition from all sides with a KPMG report showing 84% of millennials would consider banking with a tech giant like Google.

Despite growing competition, the major banks continue to maintain strong corporate reputations through customer experience, infrastructure and security. The challenge in maintaining that reputation is in building trust through customer experience driven by application performance. Poor application performance is a major factor driving loss of trust in companies, with 63% of consumers indicating that flawless application performance is essential in the banking and insurance industry - which is higher than any other industry.

For banks and fintechs, this means that any performance-related issues can put a significant dent in a customer's trust in their ability to deliver a secure service. A small issue such as a buggy application interface that's not swiftly corrected can often lead to customer trust in the institution to dissolve.

Fintechs and banks need to demonstrate that their services are secure and trustworthy, however, the issue with this lies in the application infrastructure itself. If a problem was to occur in a financial transaction, it could take some time before the root cause is identified. This would not only cost thousands of dollars in downtime, but erode customer confidence in the firm.

Delivering seamless performance to ensure customer confidence

Moneysoft, an independent Australian fintech company prioritising customer experience, saw the importance of investing in the ability to deliver a secure customer experience through application performance. In a time of rapid growth, Moneysoft needed to be sure its application performance would not be hindered by the increase in app usage. With customers like financial advisors, mortgage brokers and superannuation funds, the right monitoring solution was critical for Moneysoft, as the need to scale performance was an organisational imperative. The company worked to accelerate its digital business and empower the delivery of its SaaS products. After taking action, Moneysoft was able to ensure customer satisfaction with application performance that met both internal needs and as well as customer needs. Proper monitoring solutions can offer banks and fintechs a unified view of all applications as an interconnected map, giving them clear visibility across operations and application teams. This also allows them to easily and quickly understand how bugs, malfunctions, and lags are occurring, and how to address these issues efficiently. A smooth-performing and well-monitored app builds customer confidence and encourages trust in the institution behind the app. In the case of Moneysoft, application performance monitoring helped holistically capture, manage and rapidly analyse customer, application and business performance data to ensure a seamless customer experience. The rise in mobile banking and disruptive technology poses both an opportunity and a threat to financial institutions. A poor app performance can erode trust, and a loss of trust can potentially eliminate customer loyalty. This means that with the acceleration in app adoption, banking and other financial institutions can maintain customer loyalty only by delivering an optimal app experience. Those companies that invest in app performance monitoring will be the ones to better support trusting relationships with their customers through technology, and will help build a culture surrounding customer experience. Healthy applications mean a healthy customer relationship for both fintechs and banks alike.