A day-long thought experiment on what a refreshed banking app for St George could look like

Back when I was a teenager, my mum took me to the local St George branch and helped me open my first bank account. For a kid, its a pretty thrilling moment — it feels like one of those milestones on a journey toward becoming an adult. I scooped up all my coins and a couple of scrunched up notes from my pocket and pushed them toward the clerk, she whipped the notes & coins together and counted them at a speed that only tellers can, printed a receipt out and handed me my first banking card. (I would later find out that this card could basically be used for nothing bar getting cash out at the ATM to my dismay). And that was it, I was a St George customer — just like my mum was. The bank had a dragon as a mascot - it was the easiest choice 12 year old me could have made.

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Fast forward a few years, the iPhone drops, smartphones are ubiqutious and everyone has an app. All the big banks in Australia are getting on it, and the term 'mobile banking' was here to stay, changing the way customers could manage their accounts, pay bills & send money. Branches could very well soon be a thing of the past — over-the-phone banking at least, definitely was.

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But here I am in 2024, and its been a long time, more than a decade, since I handed the dragon back and swapped to more tech-forward banks. Looking back at the App Store today, and largely that St George banking app, is still the same as it was all those years ago.

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So I spent the day and had a thought experiment on what could a St George app of 2024 look like. How had neo-banks and tech forward banking institutions of Australia pushed the envelope already, and is there something for St George to learn? Or is their old product just timeless?

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