Interswitch Releases ‘State of UX in Financial Apps: Nigeria Report 2025’, Highlighting User Experience as the Next Competitive Frontier in Digital Banking

Interswitch, one of Africa’s leading integrated payments and digital commerce companies, has announced the release of its latest industry report, the State of UX in Financial Apps: Nigeria Report 2025. The report provides a comprehensive, data-driven assessment of user experience (UX) across Nigeria’s leading financial applications and outlines practical insights to guide the evolution of digital banking and financial services.

Drawing on extensive user research conducted in 2025, the report includes evaluations of leading financial apps, surveys of hundreds of users, and in-depth interviews. Nigerians were asked a simple but revealing question: “What would you like to see in your bank’s app?” Their responses pointed to rising expectations around speed, clarity, transparency, personalization, trust, and effective in-app support.

As a long-standing infrastructure provider connecting banks, fintechs, merchants, and consumers and also, considering the central role it plays in the provision of Mobile Financial Services (MFS) within the ecosystem, , Interswitch brings a unique ecosystem-wide perspective to the analysis. This position enables the company to identify patterns in how users interact with financial apps at scale, and to highlight systemic strengths, gaps, and opportunities shaping the digital finance experience.

Speaking on the release, Cherry Eromosele, the Executive Vice President, Group Marketing and Communications of Interswitch, said:

“User experience is no longer a cosmetic layer in financial services, it is the product itself. As digital channels become the primary way people engage with financial institutions, trust, simplicity, and reliability are what truly differentiate one platform from another. This report reflects real user voices and rigorous analysis and is intended to help banks and fintechs design services people genuinely understand, trust, and enjoy using. Improving experience is essential to deepening inclusion and sustaining the next phase of digital finance growth.”

The report finds that while core transactions such as transfers generally perform better than other tasks, significant usability challenges remain across bill payments, airtime purchases, error handling, and in-app support. Notably, 71% of Nigerians surveyed said they find help options within their financial apps ineffective, making in-app support one of the weakest points in today’s digital banking experience. Users cited unclear error messages, limited real-time guidance, and overly complex interfaces as recurring sources of frustration.

Using globally recognised usability principles, including those developed by Jakob Nielsen, the study evaluates financial apps against best practices in areas such as system feedback, error prevention, consistency, flexibility, and accessibility. While progress has been made in transparency and reliability, the findings point to clear opportunities to design more intuitive, supportive, and human-centred experiences.

Beyond user insights, the report incorporates perspectives from product leaders and designers across the financial services ecosystem, reinforcing the importance of collaboration, continuous testing, and user-led decision-making in raising UX standards.

By publishing the State of UX in Financial Apps: Nigeria Report 2025, Interswitch aims to contribute to a broader global conversation on how user experience can drive trust, adoption, and long-term value in digital financial services. The report is now available to financial institutions, fintech operators, regulators, product leaders, and the wider technology community here.