Digital Banking Statements: Here’s What Consumers Really Want

Digital banking is quickly evolving, and with it, so are customer expectations around what it can and should do. More consumers are turning to digital channels—such as their bank’s or card issuer’s mobile app or online banking platform—as their primary tool for managing their payment history.
 
A recent survey by Ethoca and the Aite-Novarica Group explores how consumer expectations and preferences with digital banking and payments are changing, including their desire for greater convenience and an overall more seamless experience as it relates to managing their credit and debit card transaction history.

Here are three key aspects of digital banking and how consumers’ sentiments and preferences are shifting:

1. Clear Purchase History

Consumers today expect a seamless experience and clear details at every touch point—and their expectations with digital banking are the same.
 
Most transaction statements that banking apps offer today provide a laundry list of seemingly random numbers and letters that can make it difficult to clearly recall purchase history.
 
But with the advent of new collaboration tools, merchants can now share their merchant logo directly in financial institutions’ digital bank channels along with clear merchant names to make it easier for customers to recognise their purchases.
 
The Ethoca logo initiative, for example, lets merchants upload their logo so that it can be added to digital banking apps for free. Not only does this help customers reduce transaction confusion, but it also extends the merchant’s brand identity. For issuers, providing merchants’ logos in transaction histories enhances the user experience—helping cardholders better recall their purchases and reduce cases of friendly fraud caused by transaction confusion.

2. Digital Receipts

Consumers’ interest in receiving digital receipts from merchants is growing, as people value the convenience they provide. The survey found that of the respondents who provided information to receive a digital receipt, 46% preferred a digital version over a paper receipt.
 
However, while some merchants provide digital receipts to customers directly via email or text, there’s growing interest among consumers to receive receipts through the digital banking applications where they review their payment history. In fact, 42% of consumers surveyed said they would prefer receiving digital receipts through their online banking system or mobile banking app instead of receiving them electronically from the merchant. The top reason? The convenience of having receipts kept all in one place and the ability to find receipts faster.
 
Today, collaborative tools used to share information between merchants and card issuers allow detailed digital receipts to appear in digital banking applications—providing a one-stop place for consumers to manage their receipts.
 
Generally, consumers said they don’t keep paper receipts longer than a week on smaller-ticket purchases, such as fast-food meals and gas, but tend to keep them longer on big-ticket purchases. The biggest reason consumers say they keep receipts are in case they need to make a return (65%) or in case the purchase has a warranty/guarantee or service contract (52%).
 
Other future potential features that could be added to digital receipts that consumers expressed an interest in using include the ability to request an item’s return or exchange directly through the receipt, redeem offers and keep track of loyalty rewards. 

3. Subscriptions and Recurring Payment Management

As digital banking evolves, the ability to integrate it with more shopping and purchase-management features is expanding. One area of strong interest among consumers is helping manage their subscriptions and other recurring payments—all through their digital banking applications.
 
More specifically, about 70% of consumers said they would like to see when a subscription starts and ends and would like a centralised place to manage subscriptions and recurring billing information. The majority of consumers think it would be helpful to use their digital banking app to cancel a subscription (76%) or renew one (66%).
 
These findings suggest that consumers are excited about the potential to manage their subscriptions more easily through their digital banking applications, likely because of the ease and time savings offered.

Giving customers what they expect

As online and digital banking applications evolve, merchants will continue to have more opportunities to provide greater visibility and control to customers directly through those applications. This presents a valuable opportunity to offer customers what they want—a seamless and simplified purchase experience. It also provides the ability to better engage customers while giving them the tools and information they need to more effectively manage their payments.
 
Want to read more about how consumers’ perceptions around digital receipts are changing? Download our report.