Some 70% of negative mobile banking apps feedback relates to customer frustrations with a policy or procedure enacted by the financial institution and insufficient communication, according to the Austin, Texas-based Malauzai.

Mobile and internet banking provider Malauzai Software's Monkey Memo, The Design X-Factor, provides in-depth analysis of mobile banking apps customer ratings, comments and feedback as published in Google Play and Apple's App Store. The Monkey Memo, based on Little-Data factoids pulled from collection of actual digital-channel usage data, covers 10 million monthly logins from about 650,000 active users and 450 banks and credit unions.

Highlights from Malauzai's primary research of Google Play and App Store ratings include:

• 60% of negative comments stemmed from something done on purpose by the financial institution, such as enforcing a policy or a procedure the customer does not like.
• 30% of negative comments are about legitimate bugs in the system.
• 15% of the overall comments are positive but negative comments far outweigh positive comments in the App Store by 500%.
• 10% of negative comments are about poor communications. The financial institutions are not telling their customers about changes until after they happen.
• 85% of comments traced back to an update within the past 15-20 days. The rate of comments increases by 350% when an update or major app change occurs.

The Malauzai report also suggested The Design X-Factor is not all about the screens. "Great design is also about the total customer experience. Increasingly, banks and credit unions are waking up to this. Aesthetically pleasing screens must be accompanied by a progressive approach to policies and procedures because those factors dramatically influence customer satisfaction," Robb Gaynor, Malauzai's chief product officer, said in the report.