Are you a LOOP customer?
LOOP, which brings together the best of both banking and mobile money services, has been around for a while now. At least 8 years, if you are keeping the count. As such, like any other brand that has been around for that long, it has evolved.
In 2023, it debuted a bold fresh new look that we didn’t quite like then. When we expressed our displeasure with the new look, as longtime LOOP customers, LOOP took in all the feedback and addressed it over time. The end result? The more streamlined experience (no more confusion between what’s locked safely in your account and what’s available for making payments, for instance) that has been there until this month when LOOP sought to take that a notch higher with even more improvements to its app.
The app, usually the centre of all our interactions with the services offered by LOOP, received an upgrade a week ago to make it faster and provide a more intuitive experience.
What am I talking about?
You see, everything in the app has been simplified.
The looks
Let’s start with the colours. As you can see in the featured photo above and in the screengrabs below, LOOP has largely maintained the orange-ish colour scheme it debuted in 2023 that is very catchy and unmissable while also introducing a pinkish hue to go with it in some instances and a purple colour on some of the reworked pages.
The functions
While everything you loved about the LOOP app remains in place, things have been moved here and there to make it even easier to perform many daily tasks.
For instance, it’s now much easier to pay businesses that accept direct LOOP payments from the revamped ‘Pay LOOP BIZ’ menu. A simple tap from the Quick Actions section of the revamped home page lets one choose between keying in the LOOP Biz account number and scanning a quick response (QR) code displayed at the business in order to make a payment.
The separation of LOOP Biz and Lipa na M-Pesa is significant. Before the app update this month, LOOP users were presented with two options on the app’s home page: ‘Pay By Code’ and ‘Scan to Pay’. These two options catered to both Lipa na M-Pesa (Buy Goods and Pay Bill) and LOOP Biz. For many, that could be confusing. Now, when one opens the app, they can clearly see a ‘Lipa na M-Pesa’ Quick Action menu item and, for those that need it, a ‘Pay LOOP BIZ’ menu as well.
It is worth noting that the former Quick Pay section on the app is what is now being referred to as Quick Actions, easily accessible shortcuts to some of the most used functions of the app. Like making payments, paying bills, sending money, etc. Heck, there’s even a Standing Order shortcut.
Depositing funds for whatever reason and from whatever means is still a tap away on the home screen but things have been shuffled to make that near effortless.
The Discover page is also teeming with active deals at any given time. Given the location permission that the app requires, these deals may change by location.
The Grow tab has also been upgraded with users getting an at-a-glance outstanding loan information, savings and investment balances.
Reduced journey, easier to find menus and options
The updated looks and the many new functions are a way of making it easier the app. As you will note once you start interacting with the app, where there existed multiple steps before, they have been reduced to just one or two steps only. For instance, you don’t need to go through several steps in order to check out a Term Loan or activate Overdraft on your LOOP account.
New stuff
Existing LOOP customers have easy access to their LOOP cards in the revamped app, just like they could in the old app. And they can also add other (Visa) cards as well, not necessarily LOOP cards. Just cards from other institutions that they may have so that everything can be managed from one place. Do you know what’s cooler? They can also create new LOOP virtual cards for various use cases.
Have you upgraded to the new LOOP app? What do you think about it?
