I also balked a bit at receiving the promotional notification from bunq, because I don’t like it when notifications are used this way. Not the end of the world, and some are probably blowing it a bit out of proportion.
But it does seem to go against Apple’s guidelines for what push notifications should be used for.
Apple decided they wanted to keep their push notification channel (and it is their channel, whether people like that or not) free from advertisements and promotional activity, and I guess bunq should respect that and play by the rules.
I understand what Ali says, and the non-enthusiast bunqers may very well indeed benefit from additional prodding or promotion of features, as may bunq (and by extension all bunqers) if that then leads to more usage and satisfaction, and more organic promotion of bunq by bunqers. I doubt that many if any of the enthusiast bunqers would disagree with Ali on these points. But clear reasons have been presented in this thread as to why push notifications should not be used for this kind of activity and bunq should make changes accordingly.
As for how best to do this without push notifications? Alternatives abound:
- Email
- In-app highlighting of features and promotions (though please no modal pop-ups!)