The world of finance is, by its very nature, a fast moving and quickly evolving one. It wasn’t so long ago that banks and financial companies were utterly opaque and altogether rather mysterious organizations; they involved booming, marble-floored buildings, where quietly serious people sat behind grated windows, filling in papers and arranging cash transactions with a deadening air of solemnity.
With the rise of the internet and online banking, however, things changed beyond all recognition. Suddenly, banks and similar businesses were keen to be our friends – they sent out friendly emails, and adopted brightly-colored websites, which allowed us to keep on top of our finances without having to ever leave the house. Now, however, we are very much in the era of the smartphone app, and banks and other aspects of the finance industry and rushing over each other and themselves to stay on top of the latest trends in on-the-go financial tools, mobile device banking, and ease-of-use programs to ensure we can do what we want with our money, no matter where we might be.
This, of course, is only one side of the current finance industry. With the arrival of cryptocurrencies and a whole host of new investment apps, savings apps, and stock trading tools, the finance industry has sped up to a blistering pace. The app developers are naturally leading the field when it comes to financial innovation, and customers are becoming more and more demanding for user-friendly applications with which to handle, transfer, invest, withdraw, and share their money. These are exciting times indeed for both the banking and the app industry, and there’s little doubt about the fact that apps have blazed new trails in this sector, making our financial lives a whole lot simpler, and a whole lot more interesting.
This week, we’re taking a deeper look at some of the most fascinating developments in the world of financial industry apps, and looking at how a custom app for financial companies could help take your services to the next level.
Online Banking, App-Style
Online banking isn’t exactly new – it’s been around for more or less as long as high-speed internet has, and for many of us, it’s a basic part of our everyday lives. Thanks to huge leaps in data encryption and security, however, online banking apps have already started to become highly commonplace among the general public, and they appear to be getting better year by year.
With a custom app for your bank or financial company, online banking becomes simpler than ever. Not only can you keep track on your incomings and outgoings, and make simple transfers, set up direct debits, and check your balance all in one place, an online banking app also gives you the opportunity to stay updated with all the news relating to the bank and your financial life. On top of this, a custom banking app also opens a smooth channel of communication between the individual and the bank, meaning higher levels of customer satisfaction, and fewer missed opportunities to promote new services or to upsell features.
Another key benefit of mobile banking apps is the presence of push notifications. With notifications, a bank can easily remind its customers when money has entered their account, when payments are due, or when certain promotions come along that the bank deems appropriate or beneficial to tell the customer all about. Make no mistake, banking apps for smartphones are definitely here, and they’re not going to disappear any time soon!
Easier Access to Money and Payments
Today’s public demand faster, easier transactions than ever before. The rise of contactless payments upped the ante for banking and financial sector apps, and encouraged a flurry of activity in making everything more swift, more user-friendly, and more efficient from a technological point of view.
Over the past few years, we’ve seen how apps have made access to one’s funds far simpler, and payments at shops, cafes, and elsewhere via smartphone app have become considerably more commonplace. With such easy access to money, the process of spending and carrying out financial transactions has had the stress completely removed, resulting in happier individuals, and a greater level of trust in financial institutions.
Peer to Peer Payments
Back in the day, we used to have to carry cash pretty much everywhere with us. If you were meeting a friend for a drink in a pub, we had to do all we could to avoid the embarrassment of running out of physical funds by the end of the evening, and relying on our mates to buy us that final drink (which we would, of course, pay back the next time).
Today, things have become so much simpler thanks to the arrival of peer-to-peer payment apps, allowing us to quickly and easily send funds over to our friends, colleagues, or clients in the flash of an eye. Whether you actually use these app functions after a drinking session at the bar with your friends or not is incidental – the number of possibilities that these apps present is, simply, endless.
Borrowing, lending, sharing, paying, spending, and helping with money has been transformed completely by peer-to-peer payment apps, and the world is most probably a happier place as a result. It’s a genius idea, once again facilitated by better protection schemes and data encryption, and it’s one which the millennials and generation Z users have leapt upon wholeheartedly. Stress-free, super fast, and lacking any awkwardness or complications, peer to peer payment systems have changed the way we see and use our money forever.
Trading Stocks and Cryptocurrency
No article about banking apps in the 21st century would be complete without some mention of cryptocurrencies. Whether they’re a flash in the pan or a whole new way of thinking about money and investments, cryptocurrencies couldn’t have arisen in the bombastic way that they did without the existence of apps facilitating their use. Market traders, blockchain enthusiasts, digital prospectors, and hopeful investors alike have leapt on board the cryptocurrency bandwagon, and a wealth of apps specifically designed to facilitate their investment and use sprung up overnight.
On the more familiar side of the scale, we’ve also seen a huge rise in new apps designed to encourage millennials to start investing and trading on the stock exchange. Thanks to some seriously clever bits of design and masterful uses of user-friendly platforming, the new generation of investment and stock trading apps have made themselves do the impossible: make market trading look incredibly simple and appealing. It’s expected that such apps are set to become a major trend in the coming years, and could inject some much needed youthful vitality into the stock exchange world… which, until now, was dominated by mountains of dull paperwork, and men in suits doing indecipherable things with some seriously outdated-looking kit.
In all of these areas, and many more besides, it’s clear that smartphone apps and custom banking apps are driving significant changes in a complex and fast-moving industry. As customers and members of the public become more and more accustomed to doing things “on the go”, we can expect this trend to grow and grow, no doubt revealing new advances and developments which continue to change banking forever. The future’s bright, indeed.