When Quicken Loans revealed the first ever fully-online mortgage lending service “Rocket Mortgage,” there was, with good reason, a fair degree of doubt among consumers. The company’s slogan is curiously simple—press button, get mortgage. It can’t be that easy, can it?
But indeed, Rocket Mortgage has disrupted the FinTech industry by designing a platform that offers fully digital end-to-end service on a website that is designed to simplify and speed up one of the most complex financial transactions that most people will ever have to make. As of last year, over 2 million families had secured loans with the company.
Meanwhile, other banks are struggling to play catch up. Reliance upon outdated legacy systems, and an unwillingness to invest in user experience design, is leading potential homeowners down the path of least resistance and delivering them directly into the hands of the competition.
In essence, the failure on behalf of banks to invest in user experience enhancement means that they’re leaving millions of dollars on the table every year—not a wise decision on the part of institutions asking consumers to trust them with their hard-earned savings.
The Weight of a Legacy System
An overhaul of a large legacy system that so many traditional banks depend on is no small feat. Because this is such a large undertaking, C-level executives and marketers are often left to opt for the quickest fix in their time of need by adding or subtracting features to the system ad hoc.
In addition, many decision makers are operating under the impression that the deployment of new features won’t disrupt how users interact with other features in the same system. The reality is quite different, however.
Adding new features to a website – without considering the system as a whole – can create technical dilemmas not considered when looking at the change in a funnel.
The decision to treat new design elements like band-aids is shortsighted from a personnel standpoint as well. Piecemeal integration of new features can disrupt the workflow of a bank’s marketers as they constantly try to review and revise their strategies. IT personnel may become encumbered by requests that suspend their typical daily tasks to amend or troubleshoot problematic features.
Better UX Can Mean More Money
And considering the amount of potential revenue at stake, the banks’ failure to invest in the user experience is fiscally irresponsible as well.
In his article “How Banks Are Losing Millions by Ignoring UX Design” Alex Kreger breaks down the math.
He found that banks are losing about 45 mortgages per year due to design flaws. While that might seem like a trivial number, consider that the average mortgage is $170,000, which means that banks will forfeit $7.65 million in lending volume when home buyers turn toward the banks that can serve their needs (easily) online.
If banks want to retain customers and continue to grow revenue, decision makers must take a hard look at the experience they are offering to their users – not just piece by piece, but as a whole entity.
Taking a stand for the UX enhancement of a legacy system may take a little more time (and money) up front, but decision makers in the FinTech industry must remember that consumers are looking for a lifetime of wealth management that is literally at their fingertips.
