Product Case Study: Sterling Bank
This teardown is a structured, outside-in evaluation of the Sterling Bank mobile application with the goal of identifying friction points that affect the everyday banking experience of real customers.
The analysis focuses on four key areas: authentication, the transaction flow, in-app navigation, and customer support. For each area, the teardown documents the current experience, diagnoses the root cause of each problem, and proposes actionable redesign recommendations grounded in established UX principles.
In relation to the goal of this case study, we would try to examine the following;
Product Overview
Core Offerings
How It works
Competitors
User Personas
The Problems
Recommendation (Redesign Proposals)
Prioritization
Success Metrics
Product Overview
Sterling Bank is a Nigerian commercial bank founded in 1960, originally operating as NAL Bank before a series of mergers and restructuring. It focuses on personal, business, and commercial banking, along with an increasing push toward digital channels. Sterling is known for “The Alternative Bank” (its interest-free banking arm) and sector-focused initiatives in areas like agriculture, health, and energy.
Its mobile application serves as the primary digital touchpoint for the majority of its retail customer base, enabling everyday banking activities ranging from transfers and bill payments to account management and customer support and more.
Core Offerings
The Sterling Bank mobile app provides the following core banking services:
How It Works
Competitors
The Nigerian digital banking landscape has evolved rapidly. Sterling Bank competes not just with legacy commercial banks but increasingly with fintech-native challengers that have set a high bar for mobile UX. Some of the competitors are :
User Persona
The Problems
- Auth Flow: The app enforces complex password composition rules (uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and special characters) alongside a hard three-attempt lockout. On a mobile keyboard, entering a complex password precisely is inherently error-prone. Three attempts is understandable to ensure security and verification, but for a user base of diverse age group, it could be an insufficient tolerance, and the lockout process, particularly the account recovery flow is unreliable enough that some users must visit a physical branch to regain access.
2. Transaction Flow: while attempting to make transactions, the “Confirm Transfer” button, which triggers the final action to confirm transfer, maintains the same visual appearance as the buttons used at earlier, non-final stages of the flow. When all required information has been entered and confirmed, the CTA should visually escalate to signal readiness. Leaving users confused as to the proceed flow, wondering what actions are left to complete the process.
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3. Home Screen Navigation Structure/Arrangement: Two related navigation failures affect the home screen. First, transaction history, statistically among the most frequently accessed features in any mobile banking app is buried deeply in the app, requiring multiple taps and mental work to locate within the app.
Also, the icons paired with core quick-action features (Send Money, Airtime/Data, Bill Payments) bear no visual relationship to the actions they represent, forcing users to read the labels rather than recognize the icons at a glance.
4. In-app Support : When a user raises a complaint through the in-app support chat, the conversation history is cleared before the issue has been resolved. The app provides no visible case reference number, no live status indicator, and no push notification when the case status changes. From the user’s perspective, their complaint disappears entirely they log the complains, when they come back in the next minute, the chat is gone.
Recommendations
- Auth Screen Redesign: Reduce login friction to near-zero while maintaining account security, and eliminate the need for branch-based account recovery, by adding a 4–6-digit PIN as the second primary option for devices without biometrics, integrate an in-app identity verification flow using BVN matching and OTP to enable full self-service account recovery.
2. Transaction flow state update: Give users a clear visual signal when they have completed all required steps and are ready to confirm a transaction. Implement a tri-state button for the Confirm Transfer CTA: disabled (grey, when fields are incomplete), active (outlined, mid-flow), confirmed (filled red, all fields complete).
3. Home Screen Navigation Structure/Arrangement : Surface the most-used features directly on the home screen and eliminate ambiguous icon useage. Add a “Recent transactions” module on the home screen, showing the last 3–5 entries with transaction status and a “See all” link. Run an A/B test comparing to see how users can complete actions on core app offerings to validate the impact.
Prioritization
Success Metrics
- User Adoption: Measure the increase in the number of active users and the frequency of app usage. A higher adoption rate indicates that users now find the app more appealing and valuable.
- User Engagement: Track user engagement metrics such as session duration, screen views, and feature usage. Increased engagement signifies that users are actively exploring and utilizing the app’s features.
- Task Completion Rate: Monitor the percentage of users successfully completing key tasks within the app, such as fund transfers, bill payments, and account management. A higher task completion rate would indicate improved usability and ease of performing essential banking activities.
- Customer Satisfaction: Conduct user satisfaction surveys or gather feedback from users to gauge their level of satisfaction with the app’s improvements. Consideration could be using a rating scale or Net Promoter Score (NPS) to measure user satisfaction quantitatively.
- App Ratings and Reviews: Monitor the app’s ratings and reviews on app stores and review platforms. Positive ratings and favorable reviews indicate user satisfaction, while negative feedback highlights areas that still require improvement.
Summarily, this case study has attempted a comprehensive analysis of Sterling Bank’s mobile app experience, highlighting key problems across authentication, transaction flow, home screen navigation, and in-app support, recommending targeted redesign solutions, and establishing success metrics. By implementing the recommended solutions and closely monitoring the identified metrics, Sterling Bank can reduce user friction, improve everyday banking usability, and strengthen its competitive position in Nigeria’s evolving digital banking landscape.
