KIDS BANKING & ONBOARDING
Concept Validation | 2019
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Banks in South Africa and the world over have historically failed at implementing child-banking solutions. A tremendous amount of money is assigned and lost in the process. The ask was for my team and I to come up with a feasible child and parent-friendly banking solution that could set Nedbank up as the leader in this segment.
Funding would be granted if we could prove our solution met the needs of both parent and child in South Africa, was scalable and drove acquisition and retention.
MY ROLE:
Senior Product Design Lead
CHANNEL:
Nedbank Money App
DELIVERY:
Agile
PERIOD:
2019-2020
MY BRIEF:
I was tasked with validating a POC through Customer Desirability and managing my team’s delivery
1 Problem became 2…
Initially, business brought forward a single problem.
I facilitated workshops alongside my CX researcher to unpack the business requirements and redefine the problem from a customer lens.
We soon established several underlying issues not previously addressed in the pre-work and re-crafted the problems into two (2) Parts.
EXECUTION BUDGET:
CVP Validation through Design Thinking: R1,2M
Execution budget: R40M
Our Squad was affectionately renamed to the CVP Hit Squad.
Our mandate was to validate concepts in a risk mitigation process, prior to execution funding being awarded
Side note: Between 2019-2020, I worked on several HIT SQUAD initiatives in a multi-disciplinary Agile environment
Responsibilities
Design Ops
Strategic direction
Collaborative workshops
Squad Milestone playbacks
Impact assessments
UX foundation and ongoing UI reviews
Usability testing
FIRST, WE DEFINED OUR PATH TO SUCCESS
THE CUSTOMER PROBLEM STATEMENTS
Banking is frustrating because as a parent wanting to open an account and teach my child about money. It is a complicated process, time consuming and beyond my personal finances, there is nothing available to get my child involved and engaged.
Through stakeholder and business engagements, two scenarios emerged
Modernise the kids Onboarding process
Parents have been struggling to open accounts for their children effectively, taking roughly two hours in-branch per account activation.
PART 1
(Successfully delivered)
Ideate a new solution for Kids Banking
Parents desire a simplified banking solution for their children that enables parental oversight and learning, which ultimately assists them to become financially independent.
PART 2
(Paused due to COVID – Work Resumed 2021)
Step 1:
WE ANALYSED THE CURRENT ONBOARDING EXPERIENCE?
At the time, in-branch applications took approx. 2hrs with many FICA regulations requiring South African Department of Home Affairs validation. Most tasks were manually intensive and paper based and the database connection often failed at DHA. This has a negative effect on product take-up and caused in-branch frustration from parents toward staff.
In Branch Journey causing headaches
Nedbank Money App – Not child friendly
Step 2:
CLARIFIED PAIN POINTS AND DEFINE THE MAIN OBJECTIVES
Reduce unnecessary steps for the customer and avoid manual or paper based work for Nedbank staff, to achieve an automated onboarding process.
Goal: Reduce friction and unlock higher account creation potential
Step 3.
CONDUCT RESEARCH & GAIN INSIGHTS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS
This effort affected a second squad who’s mandate was the onboarding process on App.
Our insights forged backlog items which were addressed technically by their team.
AIM OF RESEARCH
The main reason for this investigation is the poorly perceived customer experience for this product (Nedbank4Me account) and the user experience for the online application for this product.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
1. Identify the ideal on-boarding process for our current Nedbank4Me CVP initiative.
2. Identify issues and provide recommendations for the current on-boarding process
RESEARCH APPROACH
Mixed methodologies approach was used to gain deep insights from a customer’s perspective.
1. Mystery Shopper Style to gage in-branch experience (opening a child account)
2. Post Experience download sessions
3. Observation sessions online
CLIENT SELECTION
The research was conducted on parents only.
Based on Income and Location
Entry level, Emerging Middle and Established Middle income earners in South Africa
Limited Access:
- To Banks: (Time issue)
- (Yes) Weekends/lunch breaks
- (Yes) City centres / Malls
- To related information
- To comparative benefits
Often lack “Finsavviness”
Limited Funds:
…when children are small
Limited Access:
- Data availability
- Data
- Phone capability
Limited Skill:
- Reticence due to Capability / Experience (despite great willingness)
Fear:
- Security
Greater Online access
- Data available at work
- Regularly on. acomputer
- Phones & Devices linked
- To on-line information
- To comparative benefits
Have Greater “Finsavviness”
Greater availability of funds:
…when children are small
CONTRIBUTING FACTORS
It became apparent that the dynamics of the process (and EXPECTATIONS) for “Entry Level” clients and “Emergers” (w.r.t. on-boarding), were affected by two simple and related differences, namely:
Access and resources
Skills & Tech Savviness
Step 4.
WE THEN HANDED THE DETAILS ONTO THE RELEVANT SQUAD
This effort affected the eFICA squad who’s mandate was the onboarding process on App.
Our insights forged backlog items which were addressed technically by their team.
BELOW IS MY CONTRIBUTION TO THIS LEG OF THE PROJECT
The CX Lead and I worked closely to conduct research on the current experience in branch, online and across different target markets as defined by the Nedbank segmentation model.
I was involved in hands on client engagement and assisted with themes, insights & Playbacks to stakeholders.
MY TASK LIST
| Interview staff and parents to assess pain points |
| Define the AI-IS process for a parents opening an account for their child in-branch and online application |
| Define the journey for Staff |
| Time the process |
| Propose changes to Optimise the journey and remove manual / paper work Test the journey with parents – on app |
| Get approvals from stakeholders |
| Engage eFICA squad to add action items to their backlog |
| Test live digital journey as compared to in-branch journey |
– Optimised journey on App reducing time in branch and manual paperwork. (Simplified view for stakeholders)
SO, WHAT DID WE CHANGE?
*Faster Onboarding process with smart assistance
1. New capability was integrated for Parents to sign up and register their children on the Money App – Previously this was only offered in branch
2. Restructured the UX flow for a seamless experience
3. Included a walkthrough to guide parents
4. Modified the use of iconography to reduce copy length
5. Provided clearer instructions and easy to understand language
6. and those lengthy legal terms were refined and reduced
FINAL RESULT
I helped craft a faster, more digital process which brought a lengthy 2hr Kids account activation process down to less than 5minutes via the Money App and saw many happy parents as well as staff members from that point on.
STATS
%
FASTER ONBOARDING
NEW KIDS ACC'S OPENED OVER 1 MONTH
A VALUE PROPOSITION FIT FOR A KID
—Leveraging off the enhanced onboarding process through app—
Provide a split view on the current Nedbank Money App for parent and child where the parent is able to open an account for their child as well as manage the account. The Child has an easy to use, child-specific view of their account that matches their age expectations
DESIGN-THINKING TO SHAPE
GOLD STANDARD BANKING
Introducing a Design-thinking methodology, I was able to guide the team through critical steps in validating the concept and business case.
It was my responsibility to flesh out techniques to establish customer desirability and act as delivery lead throughout.
Let’s take a look at how the project began and where it left off
At each stage, we tested back and forth with stakeholders, parents, children and child psychologists to determine our next best step.
This was a highly collaborative process and I worked hard to unlock the creative side of my business counterparts through workshops and ideation sessions.
We Empathised
PARENT & CHILD
Defining a problem from a customer stance is critical. I made sure we uncovered pain points (bank/parent/child) and built a value proposition which addressed them holistically.
We Described
IN A NUTSHELL
Through several rounds of ideation and proposals, we refocussed the business case and I mapped out logical solutions for both children and parents based off use-cases and testing feedback
We Defined
FLOW AND INTEGRATIONS
Our research and technical analysis informed the low-fi UX journeys and I worked closely with the engineering lead & solutions architect to establish feasibility. Designs were accepted.
We Deliverd
DESIGNS
Once I had a Design Team, I directed them to craft the final state UX and UI prototypes off the original solutions I had on MIRO. I also contributed toward commercialisation strategy
Concept Approvals
FINANCE
Unfortunately, after 8 months of crafting and many approvals received at each stage, our core executives noted the bank was not in a position to move ahead due to COVID.
Wrap up
NEXT PHASE
We had planned for future enhancements already and I managed a transitional state of handover and finalisation. The project has since been resumed with another team.
IT’S JUST WHAT I DO
Omni-Onboarding experience
Why copy others when you can do it better. We specifically noted our competitor shortcomings and refined our value proposition for an acquisition and retention game plan.
Thorough Research
As Design Lead, I established the need for specific research findings and pulled in the right members from the design department and business end to achieve the desired results.
I then worked closely alongside the CX researcher to unpack all users and their pain points. These were then prioritised and helped to inform the business case.
Prior to my design team joining me, I mapped out all content in collaborative whiteboards and led the team through workshops.
Feasible Technical Solutions
Customer needs require technical solutions which match their expectations. Working in a large corporate institution with legacy systems often means the technology constraints and integrations are complex and can easily shape the solution. Discussions around single app strategy or multi-app for a child specific version were constantly in play but through a combined effort between Design and Engineering leads, we sold the preferred solution to stakeholders. This was a single app strategy with limited access for children.
Stakeholder Presentations
Positioning the work in a simplified manner at various stages of work is challenging. I was responsible for creating and managing the playbacks and regularly presented to Exco, GTExco and Brexco committees. We had great success along the way with many stakeholders commenting on the design methods we used to validate the CVP.
And a Solid Business Case
At the time, in-branch applications took approx. 2hrs. Most tasks were manually intensive and paper based
We also mapped the Parent and Child journeys technically and linked the build phases to specific release dates
I used Miro to plot the details
And I crafted UX and low-fidelity prototypes
Having started the project from the beginning it was my responsibility to shape the initial designs and strategy. Once I received my UX/UI designer I shifted into a Design Lead function
Higher-fidelity prototypes came next followed by Usability Testing
And we puzzled this together to form an Ecosystem of banking and enablement features
Last but not least was the commercialisation strategy
So let’s wrap this up
Remember, the aim was to validate the concept and mitigate financial risk. As well-crafted as the designs were and although we addressed customer pain points technically, the business case had to match up.
Unfortunately with COVID it was simply not feasible to push forward with funding.
We spent approx R2.4M over the period for the team’s efforts but with an estimated R40M execution budget on the cards, the risk was simply too high.
DID WE ACHIEVE OUR GOAL? YES, WE MOST CERTAINLY DID.
After 8 months of refining the business case and artefacts to tailor the solution to business needs, the customer’s voice spoke loudest.
We established a feasible route to child-friendly banking and business has re-ignited the CVP noting it would proceed in upcoming months (2022)
REFLECTION AND LESSONS LEARNT
I had been part of a comprehensive research effort to determine the reason for a poor child account onboarding experience (see Part 1 above) that led to additional insights for what a child and their parent would see as optimal within a digital banking environment for a child account.
1.
Research is critical
so as not to repeat mistakes from our competitors and provided a True North to eliminate biases.
2.
Design-thinking shapes the inner working of business
Business use legacy methods which are not client-centred by default and designers have a unique opportunity to reshape how we do business from the inside out. Gone are the days where technology constraints rule the business decisions, the customer’s voice needs to speak loudest and Designers are their primary advocates.
3.
Product Design is not well understood
There was a constant tussle between my Strategic work and Design output expectation from stakeholders who were cutting budgets. Wanting to dive straight into delivery mode without completing a thorough concept validation process would have led to several major gaps and a poorly crafted product. It took several rounds of convincing and many months to assess Design team impact before our stakeholders understood fully.
Many of those leads have remained close friends and now swear by the Client-Centred Design process (CCD) at Nedbank