Report Identifies User Experience as Next Competitive Frontier in Digital Banking

Stories by Emma Okonji

Interswitch, one of Africa’s leading integrated payments and digital commerce companies, has released its latest industry report, highlighting the state of user experience in financial apps.

The report provided a comprehensive, data-driven assessment of user experience across Nigeria’s leading financial applications and outlined practical insights to guide the evolution of digital banking and financial services.

Drawing on extensive user research conducted in 2025, the report included evaluations of leading financial apps, surveys of hundreds of users, and in-depth interviews.

From the survey, Nigerians were asked a simple but revealing questions such as “What would you like to see in your bank’s app?”, and their responses pointed to rising expectations around speed, clarity, transparency, personalisation, trust, and effective in-app support.

Giving details of the report, the Executive Vice President, Group Marketing and Communications at Interswitch, Cherry Eromosele, said: “User experience is no longer a cosmetic layer in financial services, it is the product itself. As digital channels become the primary way people engage with financial institutions, trust, simplicity, and reliability are what truly differentiate one platform from another. The report reflects real user voices and rigorous analysis and is intended to help banks and fintechs design services that people genuinely understand, trust, and enjoy using. Improving experience is essential to deepening inclusion and sustaining the next phase of digital finance growth.”

According to the report, while core transactions such as transfers generally perform better than other tasks, significant usability challenges remain across bill payments, airtime purchases, error handling, and in- app support.