DESIGN THINKING

Evolving The Global Business Landscape

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

DESIGN THINKING
Evolving the Global Business Landscape

Executive Summary 03

Introduction to Design Thinking 05

Key Elements 07

Understanding the process 10

Design Thinking in FinServ 19

Success Stories 22

Use Case 26
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• The world as we know it is changing everyday, with customer’s becoming increasingly aware about the market, and demanding superior
services. However, hidden behind those clear demands are the areas of untapped potential, ripe for being leveraged by the innovation driven
businesses.
• Understanding the implicit needs from the explicit needs makes all the difference, as a business goes all the way to capture share of
customer’s wallet.
• Today’s business environment requires that managers adapt and change their business models on an ongoing basis. Fast-paced dynamics
demand a constant need for firms to amend their strategies in order to achieve sustained revenue growth.
• But what can leaders do to sustain growth in this volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business environment? Design thinking is the
answer.
• Financial services as an industry is not far behind the curve, when it comes to understanding customer needs and addressing them through
technological innovation and improved product design.
• The element of empathy is what drives the innovation, and DESIGN THINKING plays the ever important role of the harbinger of change.
• The role of design thinking in financial services has been crucial in the product design and customer outreach over the past decade. Large
enterprises are being increasingly aware of the potential of design thinking to serve their customers better and thus elevate their profit
margins.
• In this report, we deep dive into design thinking as a tool for innovation and transformation of the financial services industry.

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Design Thinking
Fostering Innovation

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DESIGN THINKING
UNDERSTANDING THE CONCEPT

• Design Thinking is a tool for innovation, which uses a consumer-centric

approach that puts the discovery of highly nuanced, even tacit, consumer
DESIRABILITY
needs at the forefront of the innovation process. (People)

• Beyond consumer needs, it takes into consideration feasibility, including

both the available technological landscape (can we do it?) and viability Functional Brand/
Design Emotional
(will it have a commercial market?) Design

• Design thinking involves a collaborative approach to innovation with

cross-functional teams and customer’s active participation. With a great
Service/
emphasis on accurate problem identification, the design process is highly Process
FEASIBILITY Design VIABILITY
iterative with the customer feedback involved at every stage of the (Technology) (Business)
prototype development.

• Increasingly, Design Thinking finds application in the broader corporate

world as. companies seek to innovate within constraints and address
multi-dimensional solutions by making design an increasingly crucial Design Thinking

component of their enterprise R&D.

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DESIGN THINKING
EVOLUTION

• The process of design has evolved over the past two centuries, and should now be imbibed in the organization’s culture, fostering
innovation at every level.

Design for Design to Design for Design as business

consumption sell innovation strategy

PERIOD 1800-1920s 1930s-1960s 1960s-2000s 2000s-Present

MARKETING Holistic Marketing/

Production Marketing Marketing
FOCUS Relationship

CUSTOMER
None Little For feedback As co-creators
INFLUENCE

RELATED Industrial revolution Advertising, marketing User centred design, Service design, design
MOVEMENT/ modern architecture research, industrial ergonomic & human strategy, user
INFLUENCERS design factors design, human- experience design
computer interaction,
usability

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DESIGN THINKING
KEY ELEMENTS (1/2)

CUSTOMER-CENTRIC EMPATHY IS ITERATIVE &

APPROACH
Design thinking keeps customers
at the centre of the ecosystem
and builds the process around
them. The process revolves
around empathy with the
customers, and enables
businesses in accurate need
assessment.
THE KEY
Empathising with customers and
understanding their problem from
their perspective by being in their
shoes, is the beginning of design
thinking. It helps in understanding
customer’s perception about
product with all their apprehensions
and assumptions.
HANDS-ON
Design thinking is an action
oriented process which converts
ideas into working prototypes and
shows them to the customer for a
hands on experience.
EXPERIMENTAL
Design thinking takes an iterative
approach to product/service
design where every prototype is
modified based on the customer
feedback. Every stage in
prototyping is an experiment.

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DESIGN THINKING
KEY ELEMENTS (2/2)

DIVERSE TEAM IMPLICIT VS. HIGHLY

COMPOSITION EXPLICIT NEEDS
The team composition in design The key is to differentiate between the
thinking involves people from implicit and explicit needs of the customer
different backgrounds working – identifying the needs the customer has
together. E.g. Developers, at the back of his/her mind but doesn’t
customer service executives, data /can’t communicate directly. This empathy
scientists, VPs and marketing driven pro-active need servicing is the
managers, and few people from core of design thinking. E.g. “I want to
the target customer segment. visualise and optimise my spending
during my travels” vs. “I need a Travel
card”
CREATIVE
Design thinking is an action
oriented process in which we
don’t speak in terms of ideas,
rather convert them into
prototypes and show it to the
customer for a hands on
experience.

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Design Thinking
Understanding The Process

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DESIGN THINKING
PROCESS FLOW

• Understand the unspoken customer needs by being in their shoes, Interpret their
PROBLEM FINDING

EMPATHISE behaviours and actions.

• Tools like DILO (Day in life of) help to understand customer’s perspective.
• Develop a POV (Point of view) based on the following three parameters:
• POV = User + Need + Insight (Who is the user, what is the need, what is the context of the need) E.g.
DEFINE Sam, a developer, needs a new computer because the old one was slowing down his work.
• Discoveries during prototyping might lead to a revised POV
• Generate multiple ideas from the POV developed. To get more clarity, go back to step
one.
IDEATE
PROBLEM SOLVING

• Involves a diverse team with members from different streams and positions to
brainstorm.
• Develop a prototype of the product based on the idea generated.
PROTOTYPE • The inputs during prototype development will help the designer to change the POV if
the need arises.

• Give the prototype to the end-customer for a hands-on experience.

TEST • Understand their experience, listen to their feedback and make changes as per their
expectations. Make changes to the POV if required.

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DESIGN THINKING
BEGINNING WITH EMPATHY

• The idea of ‘Beginning with EMPATHY’ is what differentiates design thinking

What are the quotes What is the
approach from the traditional approach of business strategy.
and defining customer thinking
• Empathising makes design thinking the enabler of innovation and transforms the keywords the but is unable to
customer used express?
process into one that is multi-dimensional, forward-looking and empowering

• Empathy is defined as the process of understanding what customer needs not

What does Being in his shoes,
going by what they say, but by stepping into their shoes and understanding their customer’s what are the
implicit needs which even they were not able to express. behaviour reflect challenges you
about his think he might be
• Empathy gives voice to the stakeholders, allowing innovators to view the world need/experience? facing?
from their perspective and formulate objectives accordingly.

• Tools such as “Day in the Life Of” (DILO) provide a structured way to tackle this
process. By adopting such an approach, businesses will be able to focus both on Empathy is what accentuates the design
what consumers really need (not what they say they need) and why (deep needs thinking approach to business strategy as
and goals of customers), and thus develop their business strategy accordingly. compared to the traditional approach

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THE DEFINING STEP

PROBLEM INTERPRETATION

• The traditional model of problem solving includes problem identification using tools
like surveys, customer feedback, etc. What customers said was the bottom line
around which the product/service was built.
• This approach of dealing with the obvious gave rise to numerous incumbent
businesses built around product provisioning.
• However, the tricky part was when the problem was not clearly defined, or the
customers could not convey what they actually needed. This is where the power of
empathy resides – Understanding the unspoken needs by being in customer’s shoes
and feeling their pain-points. Implicit Needs : Example
• Design thinking is built around the concept of empathy, as is all about connecting
with the customers in a way that has been done before. Problem Statement: Financial instability in the rural
India. People unable to manage finances and save
• Innovators need to lead the way and show customers the answers to their problems,
money.
answers they could not think existed. Explicit Need: Increasing need of credit for rural
• This can be very clearly understood by a quote by Henry Ford who built the first customers.
Implicit Need: To make savings account easily
ever car, as he said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have accessible. It will give people more control over their
said FASTER HORSES.” finances and they will need credit less often.

If you define the problem CORRECTLY, you almost have the SOLUTION

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THE RIGHT APPROACH
SOLVING A PROBLEM vs. FINDING A SOLUTION
• The beginning rule of product/service design is to understand and acknowledge that there
is a problem at hand which needs to be solved. Most problems are clearly stated. However,
the problem arises when the problem is ill-defined, ambiguous and unclear.
• This is where the most crucial point comes into picture: “solving a problem vs. finding a
solution”. As similar as these two phrases sound, the difference between them is what
governs whether a designer has understood the root cause of the problem or not, barring
which he/she would not be able to design an effective solution.
• Solving the problem is more about getting to the root of the problem, finding why it
happened, and then taking measures in solving it. More importantly, making sure the same
problem does not occur again.
• Finding a solution(without accurate problem definition) is more of a surface level approach
where the designer works around the problem until he/she somehow fixes It using an
alternative approach, more of a stop-gap arrangement.
• To understand this more clearly, let us take the following scenario:
John, AVP in a bank tells Brian, a relationship manager in his team: “Customer X is
not happy with our services, retain him.”
If you define the problem CORRECTLY, you almost have the SOLUTION
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SOLVING A PROBLEM
Brian meets the customer and learns about his mobile app
getting frequently unresponsive. Brian acknowledges the
technical fault and assures him to fix it. He then gives him an
incentive such as gift card and higher interest rate on savings.
Customer agrees to stay. Brian then raises this issue to the
technical team, and after consulting with them, finds out that
there is a bug in the program, making app unresponsive. The
bug is resolved and the app is updated. The customer sees an
action being taken on his complaint and is satisfied by the
proactive approach. The root cause of problem was solved.
vs.
FINDING A SOLUTION
Brian meets the customer. Customer says that he is not
happy with the bank’s mobile app getting frequently
unresponsive. Brian tells him that this might be a
compatibility issue and offers him incentives such as a higher
interest rate on savings account and a gift card worth $1000.
Customer agrees to stay. However, Brian didn’t find out
about the problem with the mobile app, which might re-
occur in future.
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THE PROCESS FURTHER

IDEATION, PROTOTYPING & TESTING

IDEATION

• This stage is about summarising the information gained during the empathising process.

• The cross-functional team of designers reframes the empathetic explorations made during customer interaction, and presents it in a format
relevant to the scope of business.

• The goal here is to create meaningful and actionable problem statements, and come up with innovative ideas to solve the problems.

• Techniques such as bodystorm and brainwriting are commonly used in the ideation and brainstorming process.

PROTOTYPING TESTING

• This stage involves development of cost effective and simple • In this stage, the purpose is to give the prototype in the hands of
prototypes based on the outcomes of ideation. the end-customer and get feedback.

• A prototype transforms an idea into something tangible • This stage is related to the first stage (Empathize) since the
and experiment-able. As per IDEO, “A prototype is worth a objective is to understand what the customer thinks about the
thousand meetings.” product, and why he/she thinks that.

• The talk and hype-building about the product starts here. • Multiple iterations are done based on the feedback.

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Design Thinking
Evolving Mindset

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DESIGN THINKING
A SHIFT IN MINDSET

KEY BUSINESS METRICS TRADITIONAL BUSINESS THINKING DESIGN THINKING

GOAL Operational efficiency Innovation

• Technology is at the centre of everything • Customer is at the centre of everything

• Customer needs assessed from what they • Customer needs assessed from pro-active
IMPORTANCE OF END USER
say observation and empathy

• Innovation confined to Centers of • Innovation is at the core or organization’s

Excellence (COE) and Innovation centres processes
• Product launch at the end of the cycle, • Prototypes are built and launched at idea
IDEATING ENVIRONMENT after iterations conception
• Working environment designed to • Working environment fosters innovation
promote efficiency • Prototypes are heavily upgraded based on
• Minor product upgrades customer feedback
• Specialists from similar background • Diverse thinkers from multiple
TEAM COMPOSITION working in Silos backgrounds, working together

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DESIGN THINKING
FAIL EARLY, FAIL OFTEN – BUT: FAIL SMART
Too late to
fail

• As clichéd as it may sound, failure paves the way for success. This couldn’t be more

$ COST OF AN ERROR
apt than in the context of design thinking.
Prototype,
• The process of design thinking is an iterative one, where every input from the end fail and learn
early
customer is incorporated in the product design. and cheap

• The stages of ideation and prototyping are the ones where a business can make as
many changes in the design, as needed. Multiple failures to meet customer’s
Project Timeline Launch
expectations is allowed. Also, It could take a long time before the product is
+$
finalised. But as long as the customers are happy with the final prototype, it’s all
worth it.

INVESTMENT / RETURN
• As we go ahead in the product lifecycle, the cost of failure increases significantly.

• The investment in terms of money and time/effort is higher in this process of fine- Return

tuning the design, but it gives much better return over a long period of time. Investment Time

• This is the reason why modern day businesses spend a long time in their beta
testing phase, before launching the final product in the market.

-$

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Design Thinking
Transforming Financial Services

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BANKS NEED TO INTROSPECT

BOGGED DOWN BY THEIR LEGACY

• Traditional banks are being bogged down by their conservative approach towards
financial problem solving.
Traditional banks are acting too slowly
• Some of the roadblocks for traditional banking innovation include:
in the move to comprehensive digital
• Banking legacy & profit-centred mindset services. On the one hand, they can
• Bureaucracy commit to investing a lot of money to
• In-house competition between departments
FinTech; on the other, conservatism and
bureaucracy seriously hamper putting
• Waterfall approach in designing new products
effective FinTech in place.
• A huge hierarchy that slows down the speed of decision-making.

• Traditional banks are still stuck in their old age approach of being a payment processor,
and money handler. However, they are slow in realising that existing economic and
financial models were created for the industrial age and they no longer meet consumers
needs while entering the information age. When customers think of
• However, there are some innovative banks offering Omni-channel digital banking, innovation, they think of FinTech.
interactive dashboards and financial assistance. But even these early adopters face yet Banks need to change this
another problem — lack of usability and appeal. perception.
• A lack of perspective towards customer driven solution design is hurting the traditional
incumbents, and they need to act fast.

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FINTECH IS MARCHING AHEAD

RIDING THE DESIGN WAVE

• In the modern business landscape, FinTech is the most funded industry and, Design thinking is behind the emergence of most
according to experts, the most promising business segment. of the FinTech business models, solving problems
for customers across the globe.
• With the help of Design Thinking approach, a small team of like-minded
people can produce an alternative to bank products, get customer support, Problem Statement Solution Design
find funding to develop their ideas and ultimately change the world.
• Long queues in bank, heavy
• Apart from the superior leverage to their technological capability, its the paperwork in account opening,
• Neo banks (Branchless, App only
banking)
customer-centred approach that is helping FinTech stay ahead on the bank far away from home

innovation front. FinTech is all about changing the way people manage their • Migrants and students unable to • Alternative credit scoring, using
finances, and this has been achieved by accurately defining a real problem – get a loan due to lack of credit the social media activity &
history mobile/utility bill payment data
courtesy Design Thinking.
• Payment with Mobile wallet/
• PayPal changed the way people pay online. • Cash withdrawal charges, Hassel
Apple Pay , using NFC/QR code
in withdrawing cash from ATMs
• Mint raised personal financial management to a new level. scanning)

• TransferWise saved millions to its users with fair currency rates. • Local, bi-directional settlement
• High FX conversion and transfer of international payment(
fee while making an TransferWise model)
• P2P lending services such as Lending Club delivered quick and hassle free lending international money transfer • Blockchain based remittance
solutions that banks refused to provide. (Veem/Align Commerce)

• Alternative credit scoring companies like ZestFinance, Lenddo, Kabbage • Unable to save money every
month due to unregulated
brought millions of unbanked customers under the credit spectrum. spending. Unable to keep track
of budget for spending
• Savings tools for visualisation of
spending, dash-boarding,
spending recommendation
based on monthly trend. E.g.
Digit, Qapital

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DESIGN THINKING IN FINSERV

CHANGING THE GAME

• Financial services is the people’s business. Banking is essentially nothing but an EXPERIENCE METRICS
interconnected web of human interactions that spreads all around the world.
• With multiple stakeholders and their ever changing needs, the financial services As a part of an organization’s strategy, experience
metrics must be an essential part of the product KPIs,
industry needs a reform in assessing these needs accurately, and instantly.
along with business and technology metrics, in order
• The incumbent players including banks and insurers have huge concerns over losing to capture the user experience as a parameter to
their dominance over customer experience, as the new age FinTech start ups are measure product’s success with the customers.
grabbing their share of wallet.
• These FinTech players use the elements of design thinking (e.g. Empathy) to develop Business Metrics
Market performance Quantitative data -
their business models. This enables them to accurately assess the customer needs of a product Dashboard
and addressing that using the advanced technologies at their disposal.
• The focus on ease-of-use and experience-over-product is making the difference Technology Metrics
Technological performance
as the FinTech players are gradually taking over the customer experience. KPIs
and maturity of a product
• User experience is being seen as the driving force for a modern business, and thus Business performance
enterprises and modern banks are pushing for increased effort on UI design, Experience Metrics assessment
especially for the mobile channel. User behaviour while
Interacting with the product

Source: The next web blog post

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LEVERAGING DESIGN THINKING IN FINSERV

THE ROAD AHEAD

• Modern Banks and financial institutions are gradually realising the need to KEY DESIGN PRINCIPLES
change their business strategy from product-provisioning to need-
servicing, and are now transforming their strategy to be the enabler of
their customers’ financial well being.
Personalisation Transparency Self-Service Mobile First
• The role of banks has gradually shifted from being mere payment
processors, to being trusted consumer advisors by focussing on the
customer experience.
Simplicity Asthetic Holistic
• Modern banks have begun to set up innovation labs and are applying
design thinking within their organizations. However, they still need to
make it a part of their day-to-day culture and processes.
• The way ahead for banks and Fis is to identify the areas of innovation and The biggest change design thinking has brought in the
landscape of financial services is a user-centricity. Thanks to it
break it down into smaller targets to meet. Greater adoption happens users expectations have grown and they are not ready to put up
with difficult, insufferable, slow, unreasonably expensive and
when bite-size challenges yield incremental yet valuable innovations.
inconvenient services.
E.g. “Improving the banking experience” is broader goal, which starts with
“improving the account-opening experience” ALEX KREGER
CEO, UXDA

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LEVERAGING DESIGN THINKING IN FINSERV

STRATEGY FOR BANKS
IN-HOUSE DESIGN TEAMS
Fostering internal design teams (cross-functional, with members from different
backgrounds and levels of hierarchy) to test and experiment with new service
innovations and continue on the goal of addressing the “ease of use” promise.
E.g. Capital One, Bank of America.

API BASED INTEGRATION WITH FINTECH (Bank at back end)

Collaborate with enterprise FinTech companies by offering them bank’s
technology platform to experiment with new age technologies and complement
the lack of skill set within the organization to launch new service innovation. E.g.
Affirm/FirstData backed by Cross River bank.

STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP WITH FINTECH (Bank at front-end)

Partner with FinTech firms which are offering financial services which
leverage their own technology platform and catering to a specific customer
segment. This helps banks understand the market potential of the segment and
the new product offering which helps them test the strategy for new business.
E.g. OnDeck & Chase bank partnership.

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DESIGN THINKING IN FINSERV
SUCCESS STORIES (1/2)
OCBC BANK
Using design thinking principles, a diverse, cross-divisional team
within OCBC Bank developed the initial concept for an investment
product based on customers’ insights.
Once the first product concept was ready, the team had a co-creation
workshop with front-line employees. During the session, co-creators
were not merely validating what had been developed, but were
redefining a new product communication concept.
The team prototyped communication ideas using simple materials and
stationery. In the testing phase, the team met 16 customers one-on-
one and showed them the prototype. As per the feedback, 30
iterations were made before the product was finalised.
After the process, OCBC Bank increased sales of its new investment
product by 150%, one month after the product launch. and increased
their customers’ trust perception.
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CAPITAL ONE
In 2014, Capital One started building its internal deign group, Capital
One Labs, hiring a new first vice president of design: Daniel Makoski,
former Google innovator. As a part of this initiative,, Capital One
acquired Adaptive Path, a consulting design firm focused on user
experience to lay the ground work for the design group.
With this acquisition, Capital One planned to leverage the digital
product design capabilities, and build on top of it, cross pollinating with
their practises, thus developing an in-house culture of design thinking
and innovation.
MOVEN
A great example of defying the traditional banking norms by elimination
of product silos and fulfilling customer needs, MOVEN is one of the
pioneers in the now-established neo banking space. After a intensive
beta testing phase, MOVEN is now on its way to become a technology
platform provider to banks like TD Bank in Canada & Westpac in New
Zealand who are at the forefront
of being customer driven in their design.

DESIGN THINKING IN FINSERV
SUCCESS STORIES (2/2)
BANK OF AMERICA
One of the early adopters of design thinking in banking, Bank of
America used this concept to solve a critical banking problem of early
2000s: How to get more customers to open checking accounts. After
hiring a design research firm, a team of five BoFA researchers visited
Atlanta, Baltimore and San Francisco to closely observe and interact
with the customers.
From this, they identified two POVs : People unable to save efficiently
and people rounding off their check book entry to an even dollar, as it
was convenient and faster. Combining these POVs, BoFA put together
a cross functional team, who developed 80 product prototypes over
20 ideation sessions. As an outcome of multiple iterations, the product
concept was framed: rounding up the financial transactions of
consumers and transferring the difference to their savings.
This concept was tested via multiple communication channels with
over 1600 customers. After multiple iterations, the product “Keep The
Change” was launched. It saw instant success and went on to become
one of the most innovative case studies of design thinking in financial
services.
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MASSMUTUAL
For a 165 years old company like MassMutual, the biggest challenge was
to get their millennial customers on board for using their life insurance
products. The real problem here was identified as the lack of awareness
about savings and spending habits in millennial. Partnering with IDEO,
MassMutual with a mission to get young people interested in their own
spending habits.
In the process, MassMutual organized meet ups and surveys to
understand the spending habits of millennial across US. From this
exercise, the problem statement was defined as lack of financial
awareness.
After defining the problem, the team conceptualised a program called
“Society of grownups”, which was about helping people navigate
complicated financial situations. After building and testing full-scale, live
prototypes, the brick-and-mortar Boston location opened in 2014. After
two years of prototyping, it was understood that the digital channel is
the way forward. Thus the store was closed. Society of Grownups is
launching a deeper interactive web presence in 2017.
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Design Thinking
LTP Exclusive: Use Case

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HELPING MILLENNIAL IN THEIR SAVINGS

THE DESIGN THINKING APPROACH

LTP presents an exclusive use case for a realistic implementation of design thinking in financial services. In
this scenario, we present a hypothetical situation where a bank uses design thinking get more millennial on-
board for its savings and investment programs.

SCENARIO MOST MILLENNIALS HAVE LESS THAN $1K

• One of the major global financial trend highlights that millennial are
IN SAVINGS
living pay check to pay check. The statistics show that more than 52% 20.5%
> $20 K
of millennial have less than $1000 in their savings account. 11.7%

• This trend was observed by the executives of ABC bank in New York, $10-20 K
7.8%
4.7%
while analyzing the sales figures for their savings products. The
number of millennial customer on-braded with the bank ‘s saving $5-10 K
8.1%
6.4%
products in the previous financial year was less than 10% of their
total customer base. $1-5 K
16.6%
19.6%
• In order to understand this problem and capture the millennial
47.1%
market share, the bank executives crated a cross functional team and < $1 K
57.6%
created a roadmap based on the concept of design thinking.
Age 25-34 Age 18-24

Source: howmuch.net, Google consumer survey

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THE DESIGN PROCESS (1/3)
PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
1 EMPATHISE
• A diverse team of executives from the ABC bank – consisting of
product manager, marketing manager, underwriter and
software developer (the design team) - visited 5 university
campuses and 4 IT firms meet young professionals and
conduct primary research interviews with millennial. The team
spoke to them about their financial awareness, short-term and
long term goals, their wish lists and future holiday plans to
understand their spending habits, and the challenges they face
in saving.
• Some millennial customers of the bank were directly
approached by the relationship managers for a one-on-one
interaction. They were invited for a meet-up session over
dinner at a local restaurant , where the team of executives had
a casual conversation with them, getting to know their lifestyle
and specifically understand their challenges when it comes to
savings.
• The team spent a few days with some of the customers,
meeting them during their outings/shopping trips and getting
to know their day-to-day activities.
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2 DEFINE
• From the inputs during the meet-ups, the team found the
following insights:
• Young customers were apprehensive about long term fixed savings
and wanted to have liquidity in their account for their desired
spending.
• Majority of the young customers looked at investments only as a
means of tax exemption.
• Most of them had planned a certain short term goal, i.e. owning a
car, holiday in Europe, buying an Xbox/TV etc. However, they always
fell short of cash over a period of time as they spent it on
unplanned events, i.e. Parties, eating out, shopping, impulse buy,
etc.
• They were not serious about being prepared for emergencies like
health issues, accidents, etc, and thus didn’t consider life insurance a
priority.
• Based on the above insights, the following POV was created:
Millennial are reluctant to enrol in savings/investments as
they are unaware of its importance, and are not guided
properly to manage their finances better.
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THE DESIGN PROCESS (2/3)

IDEATION AND PROTOTYPING: SOLUTION DESIGN

3 IDEATION
• Based on the POV, the cross functional design team conducted internal brainstorming sessions with the additional involvement of 5 young employees
of ABC bank from different levels of hierarchy.

• Every idea was aptly noted and discussed for its feasibility and viability.

• Multiple sessions and hundreds of ideas later, the team landed on a unique solution concept: A special membership program called “Spend with a
friend”

• Young customers of ABC bank, who enrol in the above program will be provided the following services:

• A dedicated financial advisor/counsellor will be assigned to every young customer, who will hold biweekly call with them, understanding their spending and goals for the month,
and assist them on savings.
• Every customer will be enrolled to a short term fixed saving plan (2/3 year). Based on the counselling sessions, every month a flexible amount will be deposited in the account.
• The bank will conduct several meet ups and community building events. The executives and advisors will interact with the customers over dinner and understand their
experience. Apart from the discussions, the events will have recreational activities and dinners for the young customers to bond with each other, and also with their advisors. This
will build an element of trust and comfort, and will enable them to open up to their advisors about their challenges and their goals.
• The bank will provide a savings tool (in partnership with major savings tool like Even, Digit etc.) for the customers, enabling them to monitor their spends, and offering
recommendations to optimize spending. The inputs from the savings tool will also act as a reference for the advisor during the bimonthly counselling sessions.
• After one year, the bank executives will hold a review meeting with the customer to understand their progress in saving and financial awareness. Then they will be offered to
enrol in the regular savings and investment programs by the bank. They will be given incentives based on their progress.

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THE DESIGN PROCESS (2/3)
IDEATION AND PROTOTYPING: SOLUTION DESIGN
4 PROTOTYPING
• By partnering with leading savings tool providers (Digit,
Qapital, etc.), ABC bank created a prototype of its savings tool
mobile app.
• All the aspects of the program was formally documented and
processes were built around the functionalities such as financial
counselling, events meet up and progress tracking.
• The bank trained a set of relationship managers to be the
financial advisors/counsellors.
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30
5 TESTING
• This prototype of the program was provided to 400 existing
customers over a period of 6 months. In this duration, 12
counselling sessions and 2 meet up events were conducted.
• Customer feedback was taken on an ongoing basis by a
separate QA team appointed by the design team.
• Every feedback was discussed in the brainstorming sessions
and based on that the program outline and the savings tool
features were modified.
• After multiple iterations, the final draft of “Spend with a
friend” program was finalised and the bank released the
program to all its customers.
• Within 1 year of lunching this program the bank saw
considerable growth in the savings and investment account
opened by its millennial customers.
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About MEDICI
MEDICI is the world’s leading FinTech Research and Global Contacts
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