According to the Appsflyer "State of Finance App Marketing", so far this year the digital banking vertical has already grown its installs by 45% in this first quarter, compared to the same period of last year. It’s a great trend but not only Digital Banks are growing in 2021, also traditional banks are picking up the speed this year, they’ve grown 22% on installs this first Q compared to last year.
Fintechs were radically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and had to change a lot of their operations in order to help the population and ease its access and onboarding in every country. The digital transformation was really the key to the fast growth of the vertical. The mobile apps are the main actor of it, mostly on mobile-first or mobile-only developing markets. Finance apps were downloaded 4.6 billion times in 2020, according to AppAnnie. Despite a drop in demand in the first lockdowns in 2020, we can see that the number of new users for Finance apps from that moment until now is on the rise, such as:
Payments apps: The growth was significant when social distancing was recommended/implemented and several people started to pay contactless to avoid cash or interactions.
Investment apps: The booming of stock markets even during the pandemic and the expansion of cryptocurrencies has led to a big growth of investment apps.
Banking apps: Account holders have grown to demand a seamless financial digital experience, primarily through their phones, which is pushing innovation among digital players and also traditional banks.
Those types of financial companies also boosted their efforts to increase app traffic, through user acquisition and remarketing strategies. Marketers spent over $3 billion in 2020 to gain new users because of the global spike in demand for FinTech apps.
The developing markets such as India, Brazil, and Indonesia are also responsible for this rise of new users and installs of digital banking apps. Almost half of all downloads from this category come from those countries, due to the large number of people that are either unbanked or underbanked.
Going a bit deeper on the EMEA Region we can see that users that download Finance apps in EMEA show a strong desire to perform some financial activity, with 25 percent to 35 percent completing the registration procedure despite the long process. It also indicates a good user experience, allowing customers to complete the process, at least 1 in every 4 people that install a finance app will complete the registration process.
In the UK, digital banking apps are a hit, with more than half of users registering within 30 days after installation. In Africa, lending apps are capable of generating a conversion rate of around 70%!
Besides that, in all regions of EMEA we can see that most users complete the registration on the install day, which is very positive, by day 14 that number can reach almost 90%.
With numbers of complete registration that great, companies are betting even more in their user acquisition campaigns, despite the high cost of media in the region.
Finance apps across EMEA rely on marketing to drive demand with over 50% of installs attributed as non-organic despite the high cost of media. To illustrate between Q1 2020 and Q1 2021, marketing-driven installs increased by 270 percent in Western European countries, with the UK leading the way with a 300 percent increase, followed by Germany with a 230 percent increase.
The growth of Finance Apps in the world and on EMEA do not seem to have an end. There are a few strategies that are being put into practice to generate those great numbers such as:
Having a mix of various marketing efforts and media, in that way you can understand where to allocate your money carefully between user acquisition campaigns to have the most out of your investment. Also, the implementation of remarketing efforts to maintain your brand top of mind and avoid the escalation of your competitors.
Focus on your registration funnel, with constant monitoring of it and optimization of its efficiency, you can reduce the time between install and registration, which is crucial for a good UX and a high conversion rate.
Continue to closely monitor fraud. Despite the impressive drop in app install fraud rates, numbers are still high. As fraudsters constantly improve and evolve, it's vital to be equipped with the latest fraud prevention tools.
Statistics of fraud remain high even though there was a significant decrease in app install fraud rates in this first quarter of 2021. Fraudsters are always improving and evolving, having the most up-to-date fraud prevention solutions is a need to avoid having this type of activity in your campaigns.
The whole world is growing, so there is plenty of opportunities to explore. Check out the opportunity to expand to developing countries, a high part of the population is “unbanked” and “underbanked” which your app can help them become users and change their lives.
These are just a few recommendations for your fintech to grow in an even faster way. If you want to build a robust and tailor-made strategy, get in contact with the Rocket Lab team, we have years of expertise growing finance apps!
Let’s grow together.
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