A new report from Visa has named Starling Bank the best banking app in the UK, followed by fellow mobile-only challengers Monzo and Revolut in second and third respectively.

Launched at the Money 20/20 Europe conference, the inaugural mobile banking app review carried out by Optima Consultancy collected and analysed more than 15,000 data points from 51 apps and 40 different brands over a two-and-a-half-year period.

It found that Starling had upper quartile performance in every category, leading in three of the six for interaction, technology and security. Starling lagged behind in money management, a category in which Monzo excelled at. Monzo in fact only missed out on top spot due to not supporting Apple Pay and Samsung Pay.

Barclays was the highest-ranked traditional bank in fourth spot. Challenger banks made up 60 per cent of the places, and despite Lloyds Banking Group claiming to be the number one banking app in the UK, the report only placed them 10th. Again, despite, NatWest winning the British Bank Awards best app category, they did not feature in Optima’s top 10.

Mark O'Keefe, founding director at Optima, said that while everyone thinks theyir app is best, the reviews and statistics on app stores paint a different picture. “Banks must be consistent, they shouldn’t neglect an operating system, and they must learn from others’ actions,” he stated.

“A banking app should be more than a digital bank statement, so its surprising that a third of banks don’t allow customers to manage regular payments within their mobile app – the challenge is that two thirds don’t support real time balances at all.”

FinTech players are changing the features provided by traditional banks – offering more security and control, delivering it in a much better way and doing it all quicker, according to O’Keefe.

The research showed a 60 per cent improvement in development cycles across the board, but to be in the top quartile apps need to be updated every fortnight or less, while most traditional banks struggle to have an app younger than a month on average.

Another report launched at the Amsterdam-based conference came from Edgar, Dunn & Company, which revealed that despite the growth of other payment methods in recent years, cards are still king.

The company’s Advanced Payments Report predicted there will be 11 billion cards across the world in five years time, with growth not just being driven by older consumers.

Samee Zafar, director at Edgar, Dunn & Company, said that financial institutions have tapped into human psychology to maintain this trend. “The most popular card in the US is solid metal – it turns out young people actually like a nicely designed, solid metal card, which they can put on the table and make a statement,” he explained.

However, cards are not the only game in town, with real-time and faster payments are growing across the globe, reviving person-to-person payments.

The research also showed that China has overtaken the US in terms of e-commerce transactions. Unsurprisingly this is driven by the mobile share of transactions, with Asia Pacific leading the way, while Europe and North America fall away, overtaken by the Latin America and the Middle East and Africa – where the ability to bank and shop on mobile is crucial where physical infrastructure is lacking.

Finally – to the dismay of many in the room – the survey also found that cryptocurrencies are still associated by most with illegality and speculation.

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