Alkami: 85% of Bank Customers Would Switch Over Poor Digital CX

What happened

New research from Alkami Technology finds that 85% of consumers would leave their bank or credit union if its digital banking experience fails to meet a high quality bar. The findings point to digital experience quality becoming a primary driver of customer retention in financial services, rather than a secondary consideration behind pricing, rates or branch access.

Why it matters

For banking and credit union leaders, the finding reframes digital banking as a retention-critical capability rather than a convenience layer. Where switching costs in financial services were once seen as a natural brake on attrition, a digital experience that falls short now appears sufficient on its own to trigger customers to leave — regardless of other aspects of the relationship.

This has direct implications for how institutions prioritise technology investment. Features such as app reliability, speed, personalisation and ease of everyday tasks move from "nice to have" to core defences against churn, putting pressure on institutions still running on legacy digital platforms to accelerate modernisation.

By the numbers

• 85% of consumers surveyed say they would switch financial institutions if the digital banking experience does not meet a high quality standard.

The Renascence take

The headline number is striking, but the more useful question for operators is what "high quality" actually means to customers in practice — and whether institutions are measuring the right things to know if they are meeting that bar before a customer walks.

Most financial institutions still track digital quality through uptime and app-store ratings, which are lagging and incomplete signals. The real risk sits in the everyday friction customers rarely complain about but quietly remember — a clunky transfer flow, a confusing statement, a login that takes one step too many. A customer-obsessed institution should treat digital experience as a continuous diagnostic function, not a project with a go-live date, and should assume that silence from customers is not the same as satisfaction.