UK banks seem to be a little reluctant to jump on the mobile banking bandwagon, and Natwest is, as far as I’m aware, the first major UK bank to develop an app for the iPhone, having just stumbled upon it in the app store.
The app allows Natwest customers to:
- Monitor your current account with up-to-date balance checks.
- View a mini-statement with your last 6 transactions.
- Setup and manage text alert services, including balance updates and limit alerts.
Despite it’s obvious limitations (view just 6 transactions?), it is good to see banks innovating in this way, it just appears that they may have jumped on the bandwagon for the sake of it, without giving the user experience much thought. Some of the reviews for the first few versions weren’t good:
I simply cannot understand why a huge, monied company like natwest could be so hideously capable of farming out  a simplistic, no-effort-needed iPhone app to a developer who then manages to release what is undoubtably one of the most SHOCKINGLY  bad apps on the free istore.
It would seem that they’ve listened to customer feedback and have gradually improved the experience. The app currently has a rating of 3/5 from 700+ reviews.
It will be interesting to see how the other big banks respond – I should imagine that most will have an eye on the mobile banking arena, and will hopefully learn from Natwest’s early mistakes, and concentrate on developing apps with their customers’ needs in mind (and of course, near perfect security) and don’t just develop an app for the sake of it.
Have you tried the Natwest iPhone app? Does it help you manage your money any better than normal online banking? Let us know in the comments below.
See the top personal finance iPhone apps.