There was a blog entry on Computerworld that commented on the lack of user-friendliness of online banking websites. Interestingly enough, a study by Change Sciences Group concluded that the banks with the best overall online banking sites were:

1. Wachovia
2. Bank of America
3. Marshall & Ilsley

Now, I may be mistaken, but I believe Wachovia uses Corillian for their online banking product and the other two developed their product in-house. I imagine that most of the banks that have over 50B in assets wrote their own solution. 80-90% of the banks and credit unions below 50B most likely outsourced their online banking. That means that most of the online banking solutions are developed by companies where this is their primary business. So if they are supposed to be the experts, why are banks/credit unions scoring so low on usability?

My bank recently switched vendors and it was not the most pleasant experience. Our most vocal customers expressed disdain for the new solution. To them, we took a major step backwards. Some very basic and crucial features were missing when compared with our previous solution. Also, the new solution wasnt as user friendly. Admittedly, it was fresher looking, but our older provider kept it very simple. I guess you could say that this was the fallacy of more options = better.

Hopefully, these providers will take some lessons from these guys and get real. Then, maybe we won’t have to wait 10 more years for them to get it right, as Art Gillis predicted.

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