Mobile Banking Study 2026

The pulse of digital finance

How to shape a bank’s offering in line with customer expectations
to enable sustainable value creation

Key findings

Mobile has become the primary gateway to customer relationships across age and customer segments and is therefore critical for the customer experience and business success.

Over the last decade, mobile banking has evolved significantly: it used to be centered around daily banking, but now it has developed into a service and (emerging) sales and advice channel.

Maturity levels for daily banking features (transfers, cards, accounts, services), UI/UX design and the feed (client acquisition and onboarding) are well developed. However, more development gaps remain in other domains.

Competitive advantages are increasingly emerging outside of utility features, i.e. through advanced sales processes, personalized insights or financial wellbeing support. Success in future mobile banking follows a simple winning formula: T × E × S – efficient customer Task handling, engaging customer Experiences, and strong Sales capabilities.

Banks must double down on a fast and systematic mobile build‑out to stay their customers’ primary partner in financial matters.

What’s in it for you?

This zeb study provides a clear, outside-in view of where banks really stand in terms of mobile banking, based on a systematic and in-depth mystery shopping of 120+ (potentially available) app features from a customer’s perspective rather than internal self-assessments. It allows you to quickly see in which segments and use cases your current strengths lie (e.g. onboarding, daily banking) and where you are at risk of silently falling behind (e.g. investments, lending, engagement), helping you sharpen priorities in your digital road map.

By breaking future success down into the TES formula – Tasks, Experiences, Sales – the study translates a complex topic into a simple steering logic you can use in top management discussions, product visions and steering frameworks (OKRs, KPIs) regarding your mobile channel. It shows how efficient task handling, engaging value-added services and seamless sales journeys reinforce each other commercially: from lowering service costs to increasing product penetration and loyalty.

You can use the findings as a pragmatic blueprint for action and ongoing performance tracking: to define ambition levels per customer segment, to identify critical features and to align IT, products, sales and marketing along a shared understanding of what “good” mobile banking looks like and how to measure progress. Finally, the study outlines concrete levers for building the required capabilities – from data and platforms to agile operating models – enabling you to turn mobile from a supporting channel into a primary driver of customer relationship value and growth.

Mobile banking framework

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The zeb mobile banking study applies a holistic framework across all key mobile touchpoints to link customer experience to the drivers of business success.

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Feel free to contact us

Dr. Sarah Brockhoff

Partner

Dr. Marc Buermeyer

Expert Partner

Eduard Maier

Manager

Simon Schmidt

Senior Consultant

Transformation and Change for Financial Services

Consulting for Financial Services

Insights für Financial Services

ESG for Financial Services

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