Future Bank UX Case Study: 10 FinTech Trends That Will Completely Change Banking
Challenger Bank UX Case Study from UX Design Agency
by Alex Kreger, CEO/Founder of UX Design Agency
At a conference on banking innovation, one of the international bank executives came up to me and said,
What you tell me about UX design possibilities in the financial sector is incredibly inspiring, but how do I implement it if my bank offers more than 100 different services? Maybe it could be possible in the future somehow, but we can’t travel there to get insight.
And who of us has not dreamed of a time machine that allows a glimpse into the future? However, if I was bank employee, I’m not sure that I would do it. In the near future, millions of bank employees will face lost jobs and millions of lost revenues. And we already see it happening; thousands of bank branches are closed, and alternative financial services receive billions in funding to entice banking customers.
Finding a banking service of the future is not such a bad idea, right? After all, technology that disrupts the banking industry, if used properly, can become its savior. Unfortunately, today, we can’t bring you incredible news that we invented a time machine, but we can still offer something extremely valuable. We have spent the last few months combining our knowledge and experience from engineering dozens of financial services in UXDA with recent trends in the financial industry to visualize the future of banking.
Is it possible to unite dozens of traditional bank features in a single mobile banking app?
This app has to be easy, intuitive for the user and provide the perfect customer experience. We are sure it can be done if cutting-edge technological innovations and financial user experience designs are used in engineering.
Please enjoy this video of the challenger bank motion UX concept delivered by the UXDA team:
UXDA team of UX experts and UI designers created this UX design concept of a mobile-only challenger bank to demonstrate how it might look and work. This case study is second in a series of UX design concepts that shares the future of the financial industry via UXDA visualization. You can find previous UX concepts of future digital banking here.
So, if we are talking about digital banking disruption in the near future, how will it work? I believe, challenger banks, as a delightful experience providers, will be based on 10 emerging digital banking trends that you may already know:
- Blockchain
- Gamification
- Nudge theory
- Robo advising
- Voice processing
- Biometrics
- Social integration
- Personalization
- Big data
- Open API and clouds
Before we present our neobank UX concept, we need to clarify the context of financial consuming. When we asked people what banking is about, their most popular answer was: “Me and my money.” That’s right, but, in real life, it’s a bit more broad. Your financial life involves not only you and your money, but also your family, friends and other financial services.
You need to know the overall financial status of your family members to effectively manage finance, right? It would also be helpful to know your friends’ financial behaviours to get some useful insights. And, finally, you want your bank to serve you, to answer questions, suggest best solutions, track your situation and advise you how to manage your money. All of this could be really helpful in your financial life.
Considering this, we based our future challenger bank architecture on five key topics:
- User
- Money
- Family
- Friends
- Services
In this case study, we will not delve into a huge description of our UX engineering process, because the UXDA approach is described in our previous case study. The most important things being done at this stage are identifying primary user scenarios, analyzing and determining key functionality, creating information architecture and exploring innovative technologies to provide the most simple and clear solution for the user’s financial journey.
During the engineering process, we have identified three key innovations on which this concept is based:
1. Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a Personal Financial Assistant
The challenger bank of the future must become a personalized financial assistant and advisor. The technology of full banking automatization, artificial intelligence and predictive analytics will lead the financial industry to a new level in the near future. Challenger banks must properly inform about any situation that requires user attention, help to improve the financial health and make financial forecasts to offer a range of required actions. Voice processing artificial intelligence will be offered as an instant service in the majority of customer scenarios. Combining big data with behaviour-based predictive analytics will ensure the precise moment when the user is ready to accept the proposal.
2. Bank-As-A-Platform
Future challenger banks should be open for integration with third-party services; in fact, they will use the external infrastructure for processing payments and other financial services. Such a platform needs to combine financial and complementary services. In this case, the role of the challenger bank is to cover our financial activity in full by uniting cool FinTech and retail services into a holistic customer experience. Only in this way can we provide a complete solution for any issue related to the user’s financial life. For those services, integration challenger banks may use open API and cloud storage. Speed and transaction security could be provided through blockchain technology used by all platform members.
3. Foreseeing Banking Service
The game is ahead of the curve. In our opinion, it is a key principle for user-centred services from future challenger banks that could bring personalization to the next level. We all hate filling in those long forms, which are required even if we just want to explore the banking service terms. We believe this should completely change in the near future. Secure exchange of user data via blockchain, automated scoring using big data and social networks, as well as the AI predictive analytics, will allow you to generate a personalized proposal even before the user requests it. So, users only have to choose the proper proposal that fits his/her needs and tap the button. This will provide not only a fantastic engagement into banking services, but also a key factor that they lack today — speed.
So, let’s proceed to our future challenger bank UX design concept overview.
Instant and Imperceptible Authorization
Users would like to have access to functionality as quickly as possible; every second counts. It could be needed for urgent bill payments, rapid balance checks or sending money to relatives in need. And, today, biometrics is well developed to provide instant access to the service with an acceptable level of security. It means that traditional authentication via passwords becomes a throwback.
To maximize security, we recommend the use of multi-factor security solutions. At the start, we provide a quick entry through biometrics (TouchID or FaceID/VoiceID), but, for high-sensitivity functions (security settings, changing limits, etc.) and for the transfer of large sums, additional authorization would be required.
Helpful Introduction to Key Data
Understanding actual financial status is the highest priority of any user scenario, and that is exactly what our challenger bank will provide after running the application. The main dashboard is easy to understand. It includes not only your overall balance, but also shows movement of your finances and recent financial notifications. We tried to spotlight key data and preserve minimal visual density.
But, what if the user has multiple accounts and manages the family budget? The task then becomes more complicated. The user wants to see the status of each account and the overall balance of his/her family. In our case, we do offer a convenient and intuitive switching between accounts via swipe. At the same time, the balance chart will make it easy to evaluate money movement in each account.
All your Money at a Glance
For a proper evaluation of their financial situation, users need to know their available balance, which includes the rest of the budget, excluding money needed to pay routine bills. It would also be a good idea to explore income and expenses for the last month and compare them to the average levels in the same period for a particular account.
Our neobank application also shows a forecast for the final account balance to the time of the next scheduled financial income amount. And all this should be easy to discover by simply clicking on the balance summary.
Therefore, our users will get the general picture of their finances, and where they’re moving, at any particular moment, and they will also be able to relate their planned spending to their capabilities.
To reach the account menu, you only need to pull up the account data card. The card locks, and the menu below will appear. Users should have an opportunity, with just one click, to get financial support through an overdraft or pre-approved fast loan. It is also important to provide a method to add funds to the account or download an e-statement. And, of course, you need to ensure access to edit the account name, configuration and primary status.
Quick Spending Insights
The balance chart, despite its apparent simplicity, can provide a lot of valuable information. In addition to the overall dynamics of the user balance, the chart shows a forecast for the near future. It can also allow you to explore paid, unpaid and scheduled bills, as well as your budget level.
Clicking on the chart allows users to get an instant idea of the most expensive categories and possible savings recommended by the challenger bank app AI. By pulling up the card, the user is able to discover more spending insights, set a budget and goals and pay the bills.
“One Stop” for all your Accounts
In addition to the deposit accounts, users can also have credit accounts, investment accounts and others. We believe that the ideal challenger bank of the future must support all types of accounts, enabling users to easily monitor, manage and add them. All types of financial accounts could be connected to our neobank app so users can get overall insights about their actual financial wealth in a single place.
We could also recommend adding some new accounts that may be beneficial to users. For example, on the basis of big data analysis, banking AI can determine a given client’s preferred investment strategies. In this case, AI put robo-advisor between other accounts allowing users to start investments with one click.
Financial Activity Feed Instead of Outdated History
The next most popular user scenario, after checking the balance, is viewing transaction history. We think that users have to get more than simply viewing recent account transactions. After all, as we mentioned above, customers’ financial lives involve many elements.
Therefore, we have rethought the traditional transaction history and transformed it into an activity feed. Now it’s possible to see information on cash transactions, suggestions from your friends, system recommendations and notifications in one timeline.
It could be explained as something similar to the Facebook or Twitter timeline, in which you can simply scroll down to see all that happened recently. We assume that this format would be more familiar and clear for mobile users.
Besides financial transactions, the activity feed should show users’ friends’ opinions about various financial services and other social-based recommendations. It should also include advice and service tips that improve the user’s financial position. Users will see contextual recommendations from AI using predictive analytics based on big data according to the nudge theory.
Recommendations may include how to reduce spending in certain categories, information about critical financial status, recommendations about savings and investments, reminders to pay bills, contextual messages about nearby ATMs when moving abroad, contextual budget alerts when visiting the shops, etc., in other words, everything that helps to keep and enhance user financial health.
From the UI perspective, we put transactions under the accounts screen and link them with the balance chart. Therefore, when moving the chart, users can see transactions for a particular period.
Every Transaction Counts
Detailed information on each transaction should be available by simply clicking. Therefore, we will provide users with detailed information on transactions, including the location on the map. We believe it would be particularly convenient to use the quick menu for splitting the restaurant bill with your friends by sending them a payment request. Users can also sort out all related transactions, edit transaction categories or report suspicious activity.
Instant Payments are as Easy as your Favorite Messenger
Money transfers and bill payments are included in the top priority scenarios and usually cause the greatest dissatisfaction in users because of the time and effort required. We wondered, if we want to send someone a message on Facebook, why it takes a few seconds, but sending money still takes days.
In our challenger bank scenario, money transfers and bill payments should be no more difficult than sending a text via messenger and is always available from the main menu. This will require smart contact synchronization from a banking database, social networks and phone book into a single contact list. Future banks must find and combine identical contacts to ensure an ultimate user experience.
As a result, the user will be able to utilize any attribute for the search recipient in the contact list (e.g., name, e-mail, phone number, account number, debit card, social ID), then select the money amount and transfer channel and click the “send” button. After receiving the money, the recipient card and account number will be automatically added to the contact list. If the recipient starts using an application, the user will be available to see its activity in the feed according to their privacy settings.
In this concept, we have taken into account and designed a full range of financial transfers, including P2P payments, bill payments, automatic payments, international transfers with currency exchange and payment requests. All of this is always available with just two clicks from the user and takes a minimum amount of time.
The use of the blockchain network by all platform participants, and the adoption of PSD2 analogues by financial institutions from around the world, will ensure maximum safety, transparency, convenience and speed of payments.
You Will Never Forget to Pay the Bills
Why should users have to be forced to open the payments section to pay routine bills? We propose to use the AI settings to automatically prepare or even pay bills. Challenger banks may put regular bill payments into the user’s activity feed and send push notifications so the user can pay them with one tap.
At the same time, we believe that, in the future, the banks would not add hidden fees. It should show the fees of the service directly on the payment card. The regular payments can be seen on the chart, and payment status is marked with a color. Now, it will be very difficult to forget to pay a bill.
Your Personal Financial AI Assistant
Actually, it is not necessary to open a particular section to perform any operation or to receive help from our challenger bank. We believe such tasks must also be solved through the AI voice assistant service. You can submit any request, from “Send $100 to my mother” to “Find the nearest ATM.” We are reinventing banking into a financial assistant that saves our time and effort.
Internet of Things (IoT) will allow us to go even further and integrate the challenger bank with smart home assistants like Amazon Echo or Google Home. It will bring us voice-enabled banking right from our home. Through authorization from voice ID biometrics… voila! You can check your balance, forthcoming payments, make transfers without pressing any button… and all of this without even leaving the couch.
What will the workflow of a voice assistant in the challenger bank look like? Suppose you want a personal loan; tap a mic icon and voice your request. AI identifies your request and offers a choice of available options. In this particular case, one of the offers has already been prepared and approved according to your credit score. All that remains is to tap “Confirm,” and the money will appear on your balance in seconds.
This is one of the basic principles of the future bank — proactivity instead of reactivity. Banks won’t have to wait for a request from a user. AI assistant will automatically prepare and approve a proposal for the maximum number of services using big data-based predictive analytics. This will significantly enhance the user engagement and provide instant service.
Financial Marketplace for Hundreds of Services
Modern banks are offering customers dozens of services. But, unfortunately, users can’t easily figure out how to use them in order to reap the maximum value. The ideal challenger bank should be focused on providing ultimate benefits for customers, not only by offering more simple services, but also by increasing their number hundreds of times, if needed. Thus, full banking personalization could be achieved for different types of customers.
The only way to ensure it is to build a future bank on the principles of an open platform with a connection through the API and blockchain. Bank-as-a-platform must be able to integrate not only financial but also retail and other types of services. It will let AI of the challenger bank provide the user with the necessary services at the right time. The bank will then be transformed into a personal assistant that could ensure user satisfaction.
In terms of UI, there is nothing invented that can interact better with a large number of services than the card-UI marketplace. This is the most familiar and convenient format for mobile users. This frame will provide easy categorization of services, a personal recommendation component and subscription management.
Insights about your Financial Behaviour
For most people, it is difficult to track movement of their funds, especially through electronic channels. That’s why shops prefer cashless methods, so that consumers do not feel that they spend too much. Our task is to show money movement in a clear and intuitive way, thus returning financial control to the consumer. Users should have an instant understanding of the level and nature of their spending and get clear recommendations on how their financial situation could be improved.
To provide this, our personal finance management module will sort all transactions by category, and allow users to set a budget for each category. If needed, the user will also be able to see how expenditures are moving in any of the categories on the timeline. Comparing spending levels with friends or typical bank customers helps the user to evaluate his/her financial patterns and optimize them.
Guidance Through Financial Milestones
Every socially active consumer passes certain financial milestones, including the payment of higher education, buying a car, purchasing vacation tickets, buying home appliances, investing, buying a home, retirement savings, etc. Customers need support to set up the next target in their financial development. To provide this, we designed templates and relevant objectives, as well as the feature to set up automatic transfers into saving or investment accounts.
Add Fun to your Finances
Technology makes life more interesting, more interactive, even if we do not leave our home. So, why do financial services have to be boring and outdated? Let’s bring fun into finance.
The most interesting thing that we include in the settings panel are your rewards points and financial status that are used for banking gamification. Examples are rewards for trying new services, sharing your financial experience, participating in the banking community or achieving personal savings and investment goals. This could also be used for cross-promotions from different partners.
A higher status shows customer experience and credibility. For users, it will ensure service discounts or exclusive offers with limited access. Points can be turned into gifts, free goods or services. Customer achievements could be shared with user social connections to gain respect for financial expertise.
Additional information about the rewards program and next-level opportunities and terms can be expanded by tapping on the points sum or status.
Of course, you are able to change your settings through this menu, and access the support chat. Support chat allows you to contact a bank consultant not only via text, but also via a video call. You can also easily check your credit score right under your profile and find out what could be done to enhance it.
Transforming Ads into Care using AI
The most powerful feature is available with the AI assistant — personalized promotions. Banking AI allows you to choose the most important and useful services and provide information about them at the right time.
Maximal banking personalization could be ensured by using predictive analytics. In particular, it has to combine analysis of the activity and the user’s financial status, the analysis of user’s social environment, big data analysis on typical behavioral patterns, geolocation data and contextual analysis.
For example, location-based push notifications may come at the time of crossing the border and contain information about the ATM’s location as well as the location of other useful services. Child spending or maternity grants detected by AI could become an ideal reason to offer a loan on increasing the living space. Flight ticket buying transactions will be a good occasion to offer an insurance policy for travel. Car warranty period endings detected by leasing or insurance data is the perfect time to offer a new car purchase. Moreover, each promotional offer must provide everything needed for instant receipt of goods or services.
In particular, let’s say you got a push notification about a pre-approved loan offer for a new car. You find it attractive and it takes you to the challenger bank app login, and then to the car list. All cars are divided into two categories: available right now or only on request. This means that you are able to get a new car tomorrow by choosing from the available options. Just tap on the “Buy” button and confirm the agreement. That’s it; your new car with papers will be delivered to your home tomorrow. Without visiting car dealerships, without visiting the bank, you are saving you time and effort purchasing a car faster than in the online store. Welcome to the future!
© This challenger bank UX design concept is delivered by financial UX Design Agency. This visual concept is not a mobile app and not available in the App Store or Google Play.
The main aim of this case study is to share financial and digital banking trends in UX design to inspire industry professionals on driving innovation.
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Alex Kreger
Founder of UXDesignAgency
UX Strategist
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This article first appeared on UXDA blog.
Read other posts from UXDA blog:
UX design case study of how online banking user interface should work
How Banks are Losing Millions by Ignoring UX Design
Why FinTech Outcompetes Banks by Betting on User Experience
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UXDA is a leading financial user experience and user interface design agency for banking and FinTech that executes design thinking in finance industry.
