According to a series of recent studies of bank and credit card mobile app and online users, released today by J.D. Power, the gap between best-performing and lowest-performing apps and websites has shrunk to its lowest level to date, providing customers a highly consistent but unmemorable digital experience from one brand to the next.
The studies—J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Banking Mobile App Satisfaction Study; J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Online Banking Satisfaction Study; J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Credit Card Mobile App Satisfaction Study; and J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Online Credit Card Satisfaction Study, track overall customer satisfaction with banking and credit card providers’ digital offerings.
“We’re seeing the digital customer experience for banking and credit card apps and websites plateau as most players have refined their digital properties around a well-defined set of proven industry best practices,” said Sean Gelles, senior director of banking and payments intelligence at J.D. Power. “However, as the consumer technology landscape rapidly evolves with generative artificial intelligence and other advanced tools becoming part of consumers’ everyday lives, banks and credit card companies are under growing pressure to innovate and elevate digital offerings.”
Following are some key findings of the 2025 studies:
- Overall satisfaction improves: When it comes to the foundational basics of the digital customer experience, such as seamless and speedy log-in, modern appearance and easy navigation, the majority of bank and credit card mobile apps and websites deliver a positive, if somewhat homogenous, customer experience. Overall satisfaction with U.S. national banking apps is 669 (on a 1,000-point scale), up 18 points from 2024, and overall satisfaction with credit cards is 659, up 10 points from 2024.
- Multifactor authentication finds its groove: Once considered a cumbersome hindrance to the log-in process, multifactor authentication has now become a key driver of customer satisfaction. Among national banking app users, overall customer satisfaction is 16 points higher when customers use multifactor authentication prior to log-in. This is likely the result of increased focus on security among customers and improvements in the authentication process, which have made it easier to log-in using multifactor authentication.
- An opening for AI: Virtual assistant utilization and customer satisfaction both decline in the 2025 studies. While virtual assistants are increasingly adopted by banks, many have fallen short of customer expectations due to limited conversational capabilities and narrow functionality. Although some banks and credit card companies are beginning to integrate AI and generative technologies, these assistants remain far less advanced than some state-of-the-art models with which customers are becoming increasingly accustomed.
“We’re seeing customer satisfaction improving with banking and credit card apps and websites this year because of technical enhancements and speed,” said Jon Sundberg, director of digital solutions at J.D. Power. “There is no question these digital tools have become more user-friendly, but utility alone is not the only factor in the overall digital experience. To differentiate and keep pace with ever-growing consumer expectations, banks and credit card companies are going to need to innovate further and break new ground on the complete digital experience.”