Banks Lose to Fintechs in App Store Ratings
The mobile banking apps of the 10 largest banks in the U.S. just don’t measure up.
The average iOS iTunes score for those apps is short of the average score for the most popular fintech apps — make that, well short. On a scale of one to five, with five being the best, the average score for the banking apps was approximately 2.66 today, while the fintech apps’ average rating was about 4.17. That’s a difference of more than 100 basis points.
Mobile iOS apps like Credit Karma, PayPal, Mint and Square Cash all have ratings of four or more, while among banks only Capital One Financial Corp. can claim a rating of four.
(We should note that Apple does not publish the exact rating for each iOS app, so some approximation was made here.)
Among the banking apps that lag in consumer ratings are Wells Fargo (2.0); PNC Bank (2.0); TD Bank (2.0); and Bank of America (2.25). Not every fintech app scored high: American Express’s app has a rating of about 2.0, while Discover sits at around 3.5.
GEICO and Barclaycard, meanwhile, were the only apps among those we reviewed with a user rating of approximately 5.0.
(We included Amex and Barclaycard as fintech companies, even though they own bank charters, because they are both mainly card companies.)
It should be noted that some app listings in the iOS store do not include ratings.
| Rank* | Bank | Rating |
| 1 | JPMorgan Chase | 3.00 |
| 2 | Bank of America | 2.25 |
| 3 | Wells Fargo | 2.00 |
| 4 | Citibank | 3.00 |
| 5 | US Bank | 3.00 |
| 6 | PNC Bank | 2.00 |
| 7 | Bank of New York Mellon | |
| 8 | State Street Bank | |
| 9 | Capital One Financial Corp. | 4.00 |
| 10 | TD Bank | 2.00 |
| Average | 2.66 | |
| Rank | Fintech Company | Rating |
| 1 | Credit Karma | 4.50 |
| 2 | PayPal | 4.50 |
| 3 | Venmo | 4.50 |
| 4 | Square Cash | 4.00 |
| 5 | Mint | 4.50 |
| 6 | Discover Mobile | 3.50 |
| 7 | GEICO Mobile | 5.00 |
| 8 | Amex | 2.00 |
| 9 | Barclaycard | 5.00 |
| 10 | Progressive | |
| Average | 4.13 |
Source: Apple, Bank Innovation (as of 8/26/15)
* Source: Federal Reserve Board
