Mobile apps are becoming the primary way more and more investors access their brokerage accounts. CI’s 2026 Investor Survey even found that mobile-first investors use digital capabilities more frequently than web-first investors. As mobile-first investing grows, investors increasingly expect their apps to match the full desktop experience.
Yet nearly all firms in our Brokerage coverage set show significant gaps between their web and mobile experiences. For mobile-first investors, these are tangible shortcomings rendering key resources and capabilities unavailable on their primary device. As mobile becomes the default platform for a larger segment of investors, firms that leave these gaps unresolved risk losing clients to competitors with more complete apps.
Last month, CI’s Brokerage team released a Web-Mobile Gap Analysis report that analyzes the largest disparities between the desktop websites and mobile apps of the 21 firms in our coverage set. Here are three high-level findings from the report:
Key data-rich interfaces, like positions, performance and realized gain/loss, often feature pared-down mobile offerings
These crucial account information offerings consistently feature greater depth on the desktop experience, with mobile often retaining core figures while omitting granular data, supporting tools and customization capabilities. Certain firms, for example, provide comprehensive positions experiences on desktop, with customizable views, lot-level gain/loss and cost basis, and allocation reporting, while on mobile they provide fewer data points and omit customization capabilities and lot-level details.
Similarly, on desktop we see firms provide more comprehensive tax and realized gain/loss details, including long/short data and proceeds alongside search, filtering and educational content, while their mobile experiences are limited to basic account-level figures.
Contextual help is another mobile weak point
Mobile apps are generally user-friendly, but many lack contextual help in key locations, which hamstrings app effectiveness for more involved processes. By surfacing guidance exactly where clients need it, contextual help reduces errors and drop-off on more complex tasks. Firms that omit these resources leave investors to figure out unfamiliar flows or terminology on their own, a gap that can undercut otherwise easy-to-use experiences. Certain firms integrate contextual help throughout the desktop with section-specific guidance and definitions embedded directly within key interfaces, including account overviews, performance and trading, whereas on mobile they provide little to no content.
Some firms are working to narrow gaps, primarily by bringing web capabilities to their mobile apps
In an attempt to make their mobile apps more in line with their desktop offerings, firms are increasingly adding web functionality to their mobile apps.
- U.S. Bancorp leads the way in platform parity. After merging its brokerage and banking apps, it introduced several new investing features to the app, including research capabilities, such as market commentary and events along with sector- and industry-specific news and charts, to help match its web functionality.
- Fidelity imported its web charting experience to mobile, granting expanded charting functionality; clients can now draw on charts, add notes, switch between linear, logarithmic and table views, and save a custom table state.
- Vanguard introduced home screen customization and profile settings such as eDocument enrollment and email editing.
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Sam Marlowe
Sam Marlowe is a Senior Analyst on CI's brokerage team.