And the Best Bank UX Award Goes to…
July 15, 2025
Bank UX wins that get great customer feedback
In 2025, the best banking UX is both seamless and secure.
We know this because people’s opinions on banking app user experience (UX) are anything but quiet.
Customers appreciate apps with advanced features, but they love apps that just work.
The top-rated experiences are smooth (with no unnecessary authentication hurdles), intuitive (enabling balance checks and transfers with just a few taps), and built with security in mind.
During our research for this article, we encountered numerous online reviews and comments criticizing poor banking app experiences. One striking headline from The Times in the UK even declared, “There is a place in hell reserved for banking apps.”
Yet, despite the complaints, there are also thousands of positive reviews out there.
For this article, we analyzed hundreds of them, examining user sentiment around the UX of popular banking apps, with a particular focus on authentication experiences to identify those getting it right.
What Makes a Bad Banking UX Experience?
Let’s start with what not to do.
When we set out to find examples of great banking UX, we uncovered a familiar pattern in negative reviews: how much users dislike apps that overcomplicate simple tasks, especially when it comes to authentication.
The biggest complaints were aimed at apps that:
Require overly complex two-factor authentication (2FA) or separate devices.
Trigger additional verification steps for basic actions, like viewing older transactions.
If we were intentionally designing a bad banking UX experience, we’d build an app with these three features:
1. Overcomplicated 2FA
Requiring separate devices or external tokens (such as card readers or SMS codes) to log in or approve a transfer is a significant turnoff for banking customers and creates authentication fatigue.
Writing on , Jamal Habash, a technical advisor at the Government of Canada, described a recent experience he had while travelling abroad, where he was locked out of his bank account after turning off his Canadian SIM to avoid roaming charges and was unable to receive the SMS-based two-factor code.
His bank’s backup “Authenticate” app had logged him out and also required an SMS to re-access. Trapped in a security “catch-22,” Habash described his experience as
“A textbook case of security punishing the user instead of protecting them.”
2. Lack of biometric login
In 2025, not supporting facial recognition or fingerprint unlock is seen as a red flag by banking customers, especially the younger generation. 83% of Gen Z and 78% of Gen Y say that they are frustrated with their current digital banking experience.
At the same time, no one wants to use an app that is insecure (or appears to be insecure). 74% of mobile banking app users have security concerns with their current system. Stolen devices, identity theft, and other fraud enablers are key concerns.
However, while biometric authentication systems like Face ID are well-received and reviewed, they can create a false sense of security.
Even when a bank uses biometric authentication at log-in or during step-up authentication, fraudsters can still hijack a transaction after a user's session has been authenticated.
3. Excessive friction
Customers expect to check their balance or make a transfer in just one or two taps. Anything more feels clunky and outdated.
Yet, many banks force level-up security even for basic actions, which frustrates users.
One user said:
“I'm constantly having to authorise purchases via the app, which is understandable in the context of security. However, it starts to get annoying when every single online purchase has to be authorised (mainly in-app purchases).”
Security actions are appreciated; friction is not.
What Does the Best Bank UX Look Like In 2025? (Based on Real User Reviews)
By far the biggest satisfaction drivers in mobile banking are strong security features that users trust, even if they introduce a bit of friction.
Our analysis of one US high-street bank’s reviews revealed that the majority of their positive customer reviews centered around the app's biometric identity verification capabilities.
Many banking app users praise apps that use Face ID as the core biometric option, describing it as “a good compromise between security and ease of use” and vastly preferable to typing a long password each time.
Another user said:
“The app uses biometric login options like fingerprint and facial recognition, which makes it not only secure but also super convenient."
Overall, across every banking app we reviewed, support for Touch ID/Face ID tends to receive positive feedback from banking users.
However, as we’ve already mentioned above, it’s important to recognize that biometrics can give a false sense of security if they’re treated as a standalone safeguard.
Face ID or Touch ID only verifies that the enrolled user is holding the device at that moment. It doesn’t guarantee the device itself hasn’t been tampered with, nor does it protect against sophisticated spoofing attacks.
Great Banking UX Is a Seamless Experience
Users always appreciate apps that make banking as simple as possible without negatively affecting their security.
Extra features and capabilities are great to have, but the majority of the positive reviews we read had words like “simple” and “easy” in them.
IronVest offers banks a customer authentication solution that combines market leading fraud prevention technology with seamless authentication.
Our banking authentication solutions provide users with continuous biometric verification and invisible multi-factor authentication (MFA), ensuring users never have to worry about security while maintaining a totally frictionless experience.
By combining biometric data with liveness detection, IronVest ensures the person logging in is the authorized user. This is further enhanced by passive signals, such as keystroke patterns, mouse movement, physical location, and device behavior, which act as invisible layers of verification behind the scenes.
The result is two-factor authentication that doesn’t interrupt the user. No codes to type. No app-switching. Just a secure login that works quietly in the background.
Ideal for banking experiences where trust and ease must go hand in hand.