Five banking apps, scored on features, function, and design — the competitive teardown that anchored our recommendations. (Some details obfuscated for confidentiality.)
American Savings Bank — Mobile Banking Research
Conducted the UX research to find what young customers weren't getting from their bank — and turned it into clear principles and a roadmap ASB could build on.
Overview
The problem & scope
American Savings Bank wanted the 18-to-30 market — millennials and Gen Z, about to become the largest, wealthiest banking cohort in Hawaii. No local bank had built for them yet. ASB brought EY in to find out what this generation wanted from a banking app, and to map a path to give it to them.
4 focus groups · 14 interviews · 5 competitors evaluated
Role & duration
UX Researcher, EY — I led the research: competitive analysis, focus groups, interviews, personas, and journey maps, feeding the recommendations we delivered to ASB. My focus was the evidence — what young customers actually needed from a banking app, and what the best apps already did well.
6 weeks · 2022 — 2023
The team
Two of us from EY, working directly with ASB's team. A tight pairing on a tight timeline — enough to move fast and stay coordinated without losing the thread.
“... retail bank customers want guidance, but many aren’t receiving it. The tools banks have at their disposal aren’t always being used or, when they are, they are not used effectively. Neither banks nor their customers benefit from this dynamic. If banks don’t begin to make more progress in making advice content resonate, they could be facing significant attrition risk.”
Constraints
Time restriction
Six weeks to understand a generation. Too little time to cover everything, so we didn't try. We kept the research narrow and went deep where it counted.
Inheriting prior work
ASB hadn't started cold. They'd gathered high-level research — J.D. Power, Gartner on Gen Z tech trends — and rough client priorities from branding surveys. Our job was to turn that head start into specifics they could build on.
Research
We went at it from two sides: what young customers said they wanted, and what the best apps already gave them. The competitive teardown mapped the field. The focus groups and interviews told us why people stayed, left, or never engaged.
What we asked
Across the focus groups and interviews, we asked one real question: what should a bank app do that yours doesn't? Then we listened for the pattern under the answers — not the feature requests, the reasons behind them.
What we found
The answers converged. Young customers wanted rewards, simplicity, and a reason to stay — and they felt no loyalty to a bank that made them work for it. Friction was the whole story: the moment an app got hard, they left.
Outcome
We delivered a roadmap: short-term fixes ASB could ship fast, and longer-term moves to win the generation they were after. Every recommendation traced back to something a real customer said.
This was a discovery engagement — our job was to find the path, not walk it. ASB left with the evidence, the personas, and a prioritized plan they could take to their own team and build on.
Two of us from EY, six weeks, one tight scope. My EY partner and I split the work clean and kept each other sharp — the kind of small team that moves fast because there's no one to hide behind. Good research, done in good company.