The USAA App has a New Look and New Features

[Wendy Poling USAA]

Updated: May 2, 2022

Download the USAA app here:

 Get the USAA Mobile App on Google Play

 Get the USAA Mobile App on the Apple App Store

Now through June, all members will be provided access to USAA’s updated mobile app with a new look and new features. We recently had the chance talk about the new USAA app with Mike Nickel, Executive Director of Digital Products for USAA. Check out our conversation:

Wendy: Mike, thank you for taking the time to tell us more about the new USAA app. Why is the app changing?

Mike: Thanks for having me here in Community. Through member research we learned members want more personalization – what they get when they call in to our Member Service Representatives and Insurance professionals. They want to find things fast and to make it easy to manage their money. In addition, we know that technology is evolving, and we want the app to be ready to integrate with changes as they come.

Wendy: What are some of the key changes?

Mike: 98% of all transactions on the app are now accessible with two taps or less. And we’ve put the more common things that members want to do on the home screen in context, right where their accounts are. We also built a new search engine using the latest natural language technology to make sure we understand their intent. We didn’t want members to have to type keywords to find what they’re looking for. This works with our virtual assistant.

Wendy: When will members be able to download the latest app?

Mike: We began providing the new app features to a small percentage of members April 5 and will continue to slowly release it to all members until we reach 100% of the membership by June 2022. Members who choose to auto-update applications on their phone will not need to do anything to see the new features. Others may need to manually update the app on their phone.

Wendy: What do members need to do if they are not seeing the latest app?

Mike: If a member received an email about the update but does not see the latest version of the app, check which app version you are currently on. (Profile > scroll down to Version). If the member is on the latest version, they will need to force close the app. The member can confirm the latest app version in the app store.

How to force close (iOS): From the Home Screen, swipe up from the bottom of the screen and pause in the middle of the screen. The member will see all open apps and their preview. Select the USAA App and swipe vertically to force close the app.

How to force close (Android): Open Settings > Apps > select USAA App > Force Stop

Wendy: Are members able to customize the home screen?

Mike: Yes, with this new update members can Select, Arrange and Hide Accounts.

How to Select, Arrange and Hide Accounts: Scroll to the bottom of “Home” and select “Customize”. Here the member can rename, rearrange and hide/show accounts and balance.  

Check out these videos highlighting the new USAA Mobile App:

Maggie - USAA Mobile App: New Look. New Features.
We’re upgrading our mobile app to make it faster, more personalized and adding smart search.

Dina – USAA Mobile App: Two-tap standard

Everything’s a tap or two away in the app.

Nate – USAA Mobile App: ATM Locator Update

Check out the upgrades to our ATM locator.

Carla – USAA Mobile App: Top of mind to top of app

Travel alerts, unfinished applications and other important info will now appear on the home screen.

Stacy – USAA Mobile App: Smart Search

The app predicts what you’re searching for as you type or talk.

Lonnie – USAA Mobile App: Strong foundation

Less time waiting for the app to load.

To learn more about the USAA app features visit the USAA App information page.

If you have questions about the new app, let us know in the comments and we’ll work to get you the answers and share your feedback!

About the Community: The USAA Member Community is place where members can access USAA information 24/7 and connect with other members. One of our goals in Community is to be a knowledge base where our membership comes when they need clarification or have questions on any military life topic or questions regarding a service USAA provides.

Mike Nickel, USAA Executive Director of Digital Products. Photo by John LillMore about Mike Nickel:

Mike started with USAA 28 years ago serving as a claims adjuster. In 1999, he moved into the newly created E-Commerce organization to work on the first iteration of usaa.com and has worked in the digital field ever since. When Mike isn’t working on USAA’s digital experiences, he and his wife Christina are busy working on the family ranch and managing six adult kids and one granddaughter.  

285951 - 0422

[mledom]

I agree with the previous comments about the scheduled transactions. I used that feature daily to track the ins and outs of our account. I see the data is still available on the website. Is there a way to turn this feature off for an account so I can go back to the old much more useful view of transactions with embedded scheduled transactions?

[USAA Social Service]

HI there @mledom, there is not a way to turn the feature on or off at this time. We have taken the feedback from our members into consideration.  We appreciate you letting us know. 

[TheLeg]

My app still looks the same. Nothing has changed and I haven’t noticed any new tools/features. Everything’s up to date, everything is current. My wife’s app has the new look, mine does not. We have the same phone, bought the same day, with the same version os and same app version. Why is my app different? 

[USAA Social Service]

The updates to the mobile app is being pushed in phases so it is normal that you may not receive the update at the same timeframe of your spouse. Please continue to be on the lookout for the update to be pushed to you. Thanks!

[Howard29]

It’s hard to believe the scheduled transactions and projected balance feature has just been wiped out for people! This was your best feature and a major loss for the user. Asking me to re-enter everything as a reminder is like a slap in the face. That data should have at least been migrated to the reminder feature. I’m very displeased with this move.

[WOJayBird]

This new design is terrible.

[Jwd1978]

Piling on to the dislike of the new app. the new app is terrible. What was wrong with seeing everything on one page? . AND they broke links to other accounts I track.  The app went from a great and simple budget manager with all my accounts displayed and all my posted and programmed checking actions on one page to just another painful web interaction room.  Way to go USAA. Better is the enemy of good enough.  Stuff like this undoes a lot of 40+ years of good feelings. 

[USAA Social Service]

@Jwd1978, Your membership and feedback are important to us and I will forward your comments to the appropriate area for further review. Thank you for reaching out and sharing your concerns. Tricia

[Squirt Knocker]

Wayne Peacock

USAA President & CEO

9800 Fredericksburg Rd.

San Antonio, TX [removed sensitive data]

RE:   USAA Website and Mobile App

Dear Mr. Peacock:

This is the second or third time in the past couple YEARS that I have sent correspondence to USAA regarding the redesigning the USAA website, and now I am adding the mobile app. IT IS A RUN AWAY TRAIN HEADING FOR A DISASTER! 

It is inconceivable that I should open the web site or mobile app and find that the Categories, which I have painstakingly assigned to my expenses for all the years USAA has had online service, have been changed by your programming “experts.” Did your team even beta test this stuff?

I opened the mobile app and found a completely new user interface and that the transactions have been re-assigned categories without my knowledge. This is beyond belief!!!!! The categories are apparently those associated with the vendor’s primary business. THE CATEGORIES ON MY IPHONE DO NOT EVEN MATCH THOSE ON THE WEBSITE! I have spent YEARS refining my category organization and you destroyed it.

I have been a member for over 50 years and can no longer recommend USAA to anyone. Please do not have your assistant call me to smooth things over. If you want to show concern, put this letter in front of the person responsible and tell them to put it back the way it was until they can run a parallel, flawless redesign. Send me an email when that has been done.

Good Luck

[ancameni]

I agree so much about the new scheduled transaction view. It is beyond awful. All i can hope is that USAA is removing that horrid and antiquated and not at all user-friendly layout and bring back the old layout or at least give us members the option to choose "classic" vs " new".  In this day and age that should not be a problem.

I have relied on this tool for my budgeting and overview, something I can no longer do. In addition,  the new implementation wiped out most of my scheduled transactions.  Not cool USAA. Not cool. 

[USAA Social Service]

@ancameni Thank you for taking the time to post. Your feedback regarding this matter is appreciated. Your comments will be shared with the appropriate team in an effort to improve our services. We thank you for your membership. - Ben

[FGarner]

This new app and banking view for checking accounta is a mess. For months it’s been telling me “some of your information is unavailable” and I have to refresh the screen and deal with not seeing everything. The new transactions vs scheduled transactions doesn’t show all transactions in one spot like it used to, so you used to be able to track your money and payment / income flow and now the view is borderline worthless. I have had some serious issues with customer service, particularly the fraud / dispute department in the last year and they’ve been utterly unhelpful and non-characteristic of USAA’s high level of service. All of this has me looking to change banks and I’ve been with USAA for 25 years!! Wht is going on?!

[NewAppSucks]

This app is terrible. The previous version was near perfect. Listen to your members and revert back. The new scheduled transactions platform is garbage.

[USAA Social Service]

@NewAppSucks, your feedback regarding the changes to the app are appreciated and I will  be happy to share with the appropriate team. Please be advised the option to revert back to the old platform is not an option. I apologize for any inconvenience caused. - Rhonda 

[Sasha415]

Agreeing with everyone here. The new user interface is beyond terrible. I feel like they got no feedback from people that actually use this app before they implemented these changes. First of all the font is too small, there's too much white space between transactions, for some reason they decided to move the scheduled transactions to a different page which is probably the most upsetting part. Not to mention they actually deleted many of my scheduled transactions and I've had to put them in manually again at least the ones that I can remember.  I sincerely hope that someone at USAA, who has the power to, reads all these comments and does something about it because this is the worst update I have ever seen. Seriously considering leaving USAA after 20 years.

[USAA Social Service]

@Sasha415, Appreciate you taking the time to give us this feedback and for your 20 years. I am forwarding this right now. ~Tom

[Nosferatu Zodd]

While the website looks nice, the functionality is beyond awful.  Whatever system changes were made completely screwed up the non-USAA transactions, forcing me to reconnect to every other institution to get everything set up again.  In addition, the process to sync to my other institutions takes forever to do now, whereas in the past it took less than 30 seconds.  There are still some institutions that I cannot connect to, but before your supposed "improvements", I was able to connect to them in seconds.

You have to stop this "improving  user experience" garbage.  Every company who tries to "improve the user's experience" does just the opposite--every single time.  I have been a USAA customer for nearly 20 years, and everything was perfectly fine with the site.  The changes were unnecessary and stupid, and those responsible for designing these changes need to be fired for gross incompetence.

[StacyTrigg]

I hate the new format.   Being able to see my scheduled transactions and match them as they hit my account all on one page was much easier to manage.  This new format is cumbersome.  Also, some scheduled transactions I had on the old format are now gone.   It's awful.   

[CoosBayDave]

Transaction categories and my painstakingly assigned history have been unilaterally deleted by USAA bank "experts".  Deleted, as in gone forever.  I used this almost every day.  The new "categories" are those a child would pick and are nearly useless.  Now, you expect members to build new transaction "histories" from the ground up beginning now, and without assurances that you will leave our category assignments alone. Why would we want to do all that work when you have convinced us you might just up and change/delete it all over again?  USAA's arrogance seems to have no limits.  After more than 40 years of being a good will ambassador for USAA, I see no future here.   You simply should not continue to ignore the negative impact of unilaterally making the membership believe that USAA's upper management  simply does not respect their inputs. 

[USAA Social Service]

@CoosBayDave, I'm sorry to know you feel this way about the latest update. Please review http://usaa.com/bankupdate click on “Learn More” to view Money Manager FAQ. If you have additional concerns, reach our Specialists at 210-531-8722 I will share your feedback and encourage you to use the "feedback" tab, located on most of our webpages.~ Lori C 

[jscwildcat]

I too want to provide feedback on the changes to the website and mobile application.

If the changes were only cosmetic, it would not be ideal to have scheduled transactions on a separate page from actual transactions, but I can deal with it.

But the checking account view just doesn't work anymore.  Scheduled transactions show future billpay, and the checking ledger shows billpays that have fully cleared.  But payments which are in processing are not accounted for AT ALL in the projected balance (you can still see them by leaving the checking account screen and going to bill pay, then Activity).

In particular, auto-drafted USAA insurance premium, which being an internal payment should process same day.... wasn't reflected in either my current balance or my projected balance for 4 days.

Bill pay to external recipients are removed from the projected balance as soon as processing starts, several days before the "deliver by" date.  And those that aren't processed electronically but mail paper checks are not tracked at all.

Furthermore, manually entered "reminder" transactions can no longer by matched to the actual transaction after it processes.

All of these worked correctly with the previous software and gave me an accurate view of projected balance for the coming weeks.  Now the projection is off by multiple thousands of dollars.  Yes there were annoyances with the old software, like not being able to match transactions or change categories while "pending", but it was useful.  The update made it completely useless for the intended purpose.

[USAA Social Service]

@jscwildcat, We value your membership and feedback. I will be sure to forward your concerns to the appropriate department for review. Thank you for taking the time to voice your concerns. Tricia

[neocari]

The updated iOS app is basically unusable. The features that made mobile banking useful, like scheduled transactions, don't work! I had an overdraft situation, because I couldn't see the dates for my scheduled transactions and I had come to rely on them. I guess I need to figure out another solution now. 
Please don't sacrifice function for form - no one asked for category icons or visual charts.Please bring back the scheduled transactions into the main account view, not a separate tab and please recover the data that seems to be missing. I spent a lot of time adding those transactions in there and now they're all gone! I'm sure you'll say "the updates are coming." However, as a financial product, you're held to a higher standard of functionality - you can't ship a minimum viable product - everything has to work, because people rely on this app to manage their livelihoods. It's not a dating app or an app for social influencers for pete's sake! 

Do research with real users who have complex finances like multiple mortgages, rental income, child care expenses before making big sweeping changes.  

[USAA Social Service]

Hello @neocari and thank you for reaching out to us. Thank you for your feedback regarding the latest update. Please note, due to the volume of feedback received from members we are unable to notify each member individually if an idea or comment results in a direct change; however your concerns and feedback have been shared with the appropriate teams for assistance in future updates. Please review http://usaa.com/bankupdate click on “Learn More” to view Money Manager FAQ. ~Sarah 
 

[Matt_G75]

Whatever committee decided to makes these changes should be re-assigned. You guys have continued to break the website and app. Do you even test this with your target audience? If something isn't broken it doesn't need to be fixed. I can't believe I even need to say this to a large company.

[Life is tricky]

I’m abandoning USAA banking, investments, and insurance 01MAY2023 if the application is not updated with users concerns. As an online only bank, I would be quite embarrassed if I was a USAA CEO. The 2022 application is a clear “We DON’T listen to members” message. Like my comment and call USAA today to tell them you’re leaving too. 

[USAA Social Service]

@lifeistricky, we are saddened to read your post.  We do value the feedback received and ensure the appropriate area reviews each submission.  Please note if any changes should happen our members will be the first to know.  We are not able to advise, at this time,  if and when anything would change or revert back. 

[DjkCa]

We are experiencing a Failure of USAA.Com as a customer focussed product, and a high-functionality banking website.

Please return to 2020 website functionality.  The Current system is a poor product and your response to your customers (us) is very poor as well.  There have been many months of complaints, but the systems still don’t work, functions have been removed with no replacement capability. 

[Life is tricky]

Thank you @usaasocialservices for your response and proof of USAA’s continued ability to hear but not listen to customers.  These handcuffed responses are evidence that USAA Executives don’t care about customers. Mr. Peacock and Mr. Vincent, where are you on these issues? 01MAY2023…

[Morgan512]

How am I going to do my taxes? All of my categories are gone!! I don’t need Amusement, Arts and Entertainment as categories. I need Wages Paid and Business Miscellaneous and Services and Govt Pay and Rental 1 and Rental 2

Why would you think removing the ability to customize categories and deleting data is an upgrade?

And Scheduled transactions? Why USAA??? What is the benefit to having that separate? For the first time ever I’ve has NSF charges

[USAA Social Service]

@Morgan512 -  I'm sorry to know you feel this way about the latest update. Please review http://usaa.com/bankupdate click on “Learn More” to view Money Manager FAQ. If you have additional concerns, reach our Specialists at 210-531-8722 I will share your feedback and encourage you to use the "feedback" tab, located on most of our webpages. I will be sure to forward your concerns to the appropriate department for review.  Thanks for adding your voice to the conversation. - Jason

[Kdocker]

How do I hide accounts from my mobile app view. Seems like that option would be right on the menu.

[jscwildcat]

Folks, USAA may have missed the ball in the design process, but their customer support took the negative feedback to heart, called me for a detailed explanation (as a software engineer myself I'm pretty familiar with the information that needs to go into a bug report), got it to their engineering team, and made improvements.

Some of the failures I previously mentioned only happen some of the time and it will take me a couple months to be comfortable that they are all gone, but...

The most painful bug with the most prolonged effect, tracking of checks mailed by Bill Pay that haven't been deposited by the recipient yet, I can definitely see working correctly now and affecting the projected balance.

I haven't seen any issues with projected balances in the last couple weeks.

A big thank you to the USAA support team who took detailed notes and to the development teams who got complicated but important features of the old system working in the new one.

And a little holiday hope to others who lost favorite features when the app got gutted and replaced: I experienced that USAA is willing to listen and take action on things that are wrong in the new system.

[Carolyn in VA]

Please USAA bring back the ability to schedule automatic payments every 3 months. A lot of us have quarterly HOA payments. 

[USAA Social Service]

@Carolyn in VA, we appreciate the feedback and the request. I will be sure to forward to the appropriate team for consideration. Thank you. ~Suzy