In the arms race to develop mobile banking apps, Switzerland's cantonal banks are faring well according to a study on satisfaction. How do Switzerland's two biggest banks rank?

In 2013, banking apps were still emerging in Switzerland, and even by 2016, seven of the largest 50 retail banks still did not offer mobile banking. In 2022, a mobile banking app will be part of every bank's standard offering, according to a study (in German) by the Luzern University of Applied Sciences (HSLU). 

Mobile banking is accelerating due to the entry of «smartphone banks,» which operate without a physical branch. The first such bank in Switzerland, «Zak,» was launched by Bank Cler in 2018 and was followed by entries from providers such as Neon, Yapeal, and Yuh, among others. Foreign banks have had offerings in Switzerland for some time, including Wise (formerly TransferWise), Revolut, and N26.

To gauge the popularity of mobile banking apps, HSLU analyzed customer ratings in Apple's App Store and the Google Play Store. The ratings were queried at the beginning of September 2022 and weighted according to the number of ratings in the corresponding app stores.

And the Winner Is...

Luzerner Cantonal Bank (LUKB) came out on top of the rankings, underscoring a generally strong performance by the Cantonal banks, five of which were in the top 11 of the rankings. Overall, 36 mobile banking apps were included in the survey in which the LUKB managed to pip neobanks Revolut and Neon. It also appears that a massive investment in digital transformation is paying off for Raiffeisen bank. 

Raiffeisen, a cooperative bank, is spending a significant portion of its 500 million Swiss franc strategy budget on digitization by 2025. Over the past several years, Raiffeisen Switzerland was replacing outdated banking systems which had taken up numerous resources. With that project now completed, the bank can proceed with its digitalization plans, as finews.com reported earlier this year. 

UBS and Credit Suisse

Credit Suisse and UBS are also paving their digital roadmap, with UBS offering its Key4 suite, and Credit Suisse having its CSX product on offer. This is one area that Credit Suisse is at least ahead of its cross-street rival, ranking number 9 in the HSLU survey, while UBS came at number 16.

    Rank        Bank                                     Value         No. Ratings

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Apple vs Google Store

The study noted some «striking differences» between the app ratings of Apple and Google stores, with ratings in the Apple Store often better than in Google's Store. This is the case for 27 banks. Only six banks have a worse rating in the Apple Store than in the Google Store. The two banks with the biggest deviation are Zuger Kantonalbank (1.4 points) and PostFinance (0.5 points).

UBS, Zuercher Kantonalbank, Banque Cantonale de Fribourg, Basler Kantonalbank, and Bank Cler stand out among the banking apps that score significantly better in the Apple Store. Here, the differences are between 1.7 and 2.5 rating points. UBS's mobile banking app gets a very good score of 4.60 in the Apple Store, it is only rated 2.90 in the Google Play Store - apparently due to technical problems with individual users.

These days, banks don't want their clients to be singing «(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction» when it comes to their banking apps.