EXCLUSIVE – Bank of America has rolled out a series of features and upgrades to its mobile banking app including a timely partnership for the holiday season with Blackhawk Network Holdings’ gift card marketplace Gift Card Mall.

Other features include Bank by Appointment, a feature that lets users book appointments with specialists, managers and notaries through their online and mobile devices; and then there’s Expressing Checking Account Application – a feature letting customers apply for a checking account within the banking app. The process is a single-page application that’s pre-populated with the customer’s information. Perhaps the bank is hoping ease of the application process will encourage more accounts.

Bank of America also announced an upgrade to their BankAmeriDeals feature, which will go live early next year. This upgrade is said to make the feature “fun and engaging,” for users. The premise of this feature is every time a user redeems their available BankAmeriDeals, they get digital coins which they can then use to get an additional 15% cash back (or less) at selected retailers with their Bank of America debit and credit cards.

The bank also got publicity yesterday for securing a patent for a cryptocurrency exchange system(!) The patent was filed in June 16, 2014 and awarded Dec. 5 of this year.

In a statement yesterday evening, Michelle Moore, head of digital banking at BofA, said:

We continue to deliver new solutions based upon our customers’ life priorities. With 24 million mobile customers and growing, we’re developing interactive ways customers can use the app and personalize it to help simplify their financial lives.

On top of it all, Bank of America decided to redesign its homepage and give it a new year makeover.

The bank’s focus on upgrading its mobile banking features and adding more is logical given that bank is seeing a drastic increase in its digital users. So far, the bank said it has 24 million active mobile users. That number is likely to only increase, especially with the launch of its voice recognition feature Erica, which is set to go live sometime next year (read more on this here).

During Q3, BofA said its mobile banking customers logged into their accounts about 49 times per user and made over 32 million mobile payments, and used their mobiles to deposit over 330,000 checks daily and redeem over 1.2 million credit card cash and travel rewards.

The bank’s p2p payment service, Zelle is also experiencing increased popularity with over five million transactions in October alone and over $1.5 billion in transactions processed.

To learn more about the latest developments in payments and mobile banking, join us on March 5-6, 2018 at the Parc 55 in San Francisco for Bank Innovation 2018. Click here to register.