Mobile banking is now the primary channel for Australian online adults. Forrester’s 2025 data shows that nearly 70% of Australian online adults have done their banking on a mobile banking app in the past month.

My latest report, The Forrester Digital Experience Review™: Australian Mobile Banking Apps, Q3 2025, looks at how well Australia’s four biggest banks (ANZ, Commonwealth Bank of Australia [CommBank], National Australia Bank [NAB], and Westpac) are meeting customer mobile banking needs. We evaluated banks across 25 customer scenarios and combined this with a mobile banking app performance score from Forrester’s Customer Experience Index (CX Index™). We also conducted unmoderated usability testing with 40 customers of the included brands.

What’s Changed Since 2024?

  • Westpac continues to lead in our review for the third consecutive year. In 2025, the bank enhanced its mobile app experience by offering deeper personalization features such as tailored loan repayment suggestions, as well as proactive nudges and alerts that help users avoid fees. These refinements reflect a shift toward more intelligent, context-aware experiences that go beyond basic functionality.
  • Other banks have also bolstered their services across a number of areas. Several have investment hubs, but a few stand out by offering product comparisons that support informed decision-making. For instance, CommBank provides easy-to-understand, side-by-side investment product comparisons that help customers choose an investment product that aligns with their goals, investment experience, and investment amount. With evolving scam tactics and rising losses, security continues to be a key focus, with banks strengthening fraud prevention capabilities through real-time alerts, scam detection tools, and educational prompts.
  • AI is shaping the future of mobile banking. Leading banks increasingly use AI-powered insights to help customers stay on top of their finances, such as by suggesting that a customer set up an offset account to reduce interest repayments. Banks are also rolling out conversational AI chatbots to improve access to services like disputing a transaction, but they must ensure that AI-driven experiences are effective and trustworthy by embedding customer feedback loops into their systems, allowing users to flag issues, suggest improvements, and help refine AI decisions in real time. When using conversational AI in customer-facing experience, banks should adopt a “human in the loop” approach — where human support is integrated into AI workflows. This ensures smooth handoffs with full context, maintains customer trust, and keeps digital interactions both helpful and reliable.
  • Improving overall financial health is still a weak spot. While personalization and fraud protection are improving, most banks still fall short in helping customers improve their overall financial health. Moving beyond basic credit scores and budgeting tools remains a critical opportunity for differentiation. Australian banks should adopt a more proactive approach to improving financial health, including through personalized and actionable suggestions such as reminders of upcoming bill payments if the customer is frequently late on payments.

Read The Report To Learn About Mobile Banking Best Practices

Our review uncovered four best practices that banks can learn from to deliver better mobile banking experiences:

  • Help customers improve their financial health. Even when banks offer features like offset accounts and savings optimization tools, customers may not fully understand how to use them or see their benefits. Nudging customers with timely, contextual guidance can empower them to take steps towards improving their financial health. For example, NAB encourages customers to set up offset accounts and provides visualizations of how much they could save as a result.
  • Simplify the investment journey. Investing for the first time can be intimidating for many customers. Clear and easy-to-understand product comparisons and intuitive design reduce barriers, helping customers start their investing journey — similar to what CommBank has done with its investment hub.
  • Proactively protect users from fraud and scams. Customers trust their banks to keep their money safe. Leading banks do not just show customers basic banners to warn them about scams; they offer sophisticated safeguards such as real-time alerts and behavioral prompts to provide customers with ease of mind.
  • Reduce friction in key customer journeys (for example, in account closures). Customers should be able to complete tasks like changing contact details or closing an account on a channel of their choice. Forcing customers to speak with a customer service officer for such tasks can add frustration, negatively impacting customer experience. A well-designed self-service flow, even for tasks like closing an account, can conversely deliver a positive experience that will pay back through customer advocacy or future business.

Read the full report to access these insights and best practices in greater detail. Forrester clients can request a guidance session with me to learn more about global best practices from our review.