Cicero has created a report crowning the best (Sbanken) and worst (Eika) mobile bank in Norway. They have tested 16 Norwegian mobile banks in the (arbitrary?) categories log-in, moving money, private economy, card administration, and customer service. These have then been assessed by four main parameters: visual design, layout, user-friendliness, and navigation. I’m interested in how they separate the score on layout and visual design on, for example, customer service, but you have to create boundaries to create a score.
Stefan Astroza, head of analysis in Cicero Consulting, says that they think assessing the banks based on customer satisfaction surveys and app store ratings is too simple. A timely comment when every bank claims they have the best mobile bank based on where they have the best rating, whether it is App Store or Norwegian Innovation Index.
The problem here is how do you test which bank is “best” when everyone has experience from one bank? It’s like asking how you like living in your city when you have just lived in one city. Not very useful. To get a more “objective” score, you need more qualitative measures like Cicero has done in this case. However, the question is how objective a consulting agency with its own motives and internal politics can be in a case like this.
