Investigating omni-channel banking opportunities in Sweden: From a user perspective

Abstract: For three decades research has been conducted about the adoption of new channels and technologies within banking, examining the determinants for why people adopt a new channel or not. According to Mckinney [16], most bank customers prefer to perform as many of their transactions through one single channel and they only go to another channel when the preferred one fails. Meanwhile, a study by Google [14] showed that 46% of the users that conduct  financial tasks switch device before completing the task. The contradictory data leaves the community with questions about how the users view and use different banking channels. This paper aims to provide a better understanding of user behaviour across channels in the banking sector. It identifies if, and which of, the omni-channel principles (seamless interaction, optimization and consistency) are relevant in the Swedish banking context.  A study took place over a three week period in Stockholm, based on a qualitative approach (interviews) and delimited to simple everyday banking tasks and to mobile and desktop channels. Results from the study show that users had a low need to switch between channels for the same task. Main reasons for choosing one device over the other were screen size, keyboard size, portability and availability which are physical characteristics that cannot change with omni-channel principles. The results suggest that a more unified user interface design based on the omni-channel approach lacks relevance for the simple everyday banking tasks, as users will probably not switch between devices even if the approach is applied. It also suggests that taking advantage of the strengths of each device is a good principle to follow when designing for cross-device systems like digital banking.