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New report ranks the top 10 finance apps on the market

Applause Analytics crawls through hundreds of financial management tools to find which are the most popular and the best rated

A new report from Applause Analytics has narrowed down the best and worst financial apps being used by American consumers today.

The Applause report, titled “How consumers rate their finance apps,” is a product of Applause’s Application Resource Center (ARC), which produces industrial reports on fintech, wearables, travel, dating, and other markets within the “apps economy.” The company markets itself on its ability to crawl ratings by app in the App Store and to segment that data for clients.

“Most of the apps with declining user sentiment scores were vulnerable to buggy releases, an inability to achieve feature parity with faster competition and rising consumer expectations,” the report read.

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The analysis considered 358 popular finance apps, then focussed on the top 45 in terms of in-store feedback, which were the ones with more than 5,000 reviews. Only 10 of those apps got scores above 66 from users:

1.Credit Karma (84)
2.Redfin (80)
3.MyTaxRefund by TurboTax (79.5)
4.Mint Bills & Money (77)
5.BillGuard (76.5)
6.Zillow Real Estate (74)
7.Concur (73)
8.Trulia (72)
9.Mint (71)
10.Citizens Bank Mobile Banking (66.5)

All in all, it was tough to glean a common trait from the best performing apps other than they correlated with stronger brand loyalty (even enthusiasm) among users.

As expected, the more efficient the operation of the app was, the better the rating. The more cumbersome the app was, and predictably the more buggy, the less likely the app went over well with its users.

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By category, personal finance apps scored the best of those surveyed, with the lowest score, 57.5, obtained by Acorns. There were too few expense manager and tax management apps to get a good idea of trends in that space.

The 45 most popular branded fintech apps and their ratings by Android and iOS users (Applause Analytics)
The 45 most popular branded fintech apps and their ratings by Android and iOS users (Applause Analytics)

The 45 most popular branded fintech apps and their ratings by Android and iOS users (Applause Analytics)

The stats showed some interesting swings. While iOS users might have been more enthusiastic about high-performing apps than Android users, they were far more negative about low-scoring apps than their Android-using peers. As the report quantifies it, five of the top six apps and four of the bottom five were on iOS.

The biggest satisfaction swings came from the SunTrust Mobile App and Barclays Mobile Banking, upping their ratings by 23 and 11 points respectively. The rest of the more extreme swings in both directions never eclipsed more than 6 points on their 2014 scores.

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The biggest ratings swings on popular branded fintech apps (Applause Analytics)
The biggest ratings swings on popular branded fintech apps (Applause Analytics)

The biggest ratings swings on popular branded fintech apps (Applause Analytics)

Financial apps have a unique emphasis on personal information security relative to other sectors while also having to deal with accessibility, stability, and user satisfaction. Bank of America may have been considering its off-putting 38 rating when it recently announced fingerprint and Touch ID security being integrated into its mobile services in addition to opening it up to Apple Watch users.

Despite the somewhat haughty approach these reports might take to institutions and companies that come off as out of touch to the people that write these reports, ARC is more conciliatory.

It praises the quick turnaround for improvements by Citigroup on its abysmal app scores in 2014.

It is “already seeing positive returns with v7 of its iOS app that offers a completely redesigned UI and navigation, as well as Apple Watch support and Touch ID access. Citi realizes its customers’ expectations are growing every day and a brand’s mobile experience has to grow as well.”

Applause Analytics was co-founded by CEO Doron Reuveni and VP Product Management Roy Solomon. The company has 250 employees and offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, Israel, Berlin and Poland.

The article New report ranks the top 10 finance apps on the market was first published on Geektime.

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