Overview:
Simplii Financial, a division of CIBC since 2017, offers online-only direct banking. The bank currently positions their products toward digital savvy and value-conscious urbanites.
Problem:
Simplii Financial customers need a way to track their spending habits and budget within their existing mobile banking app because they are currently using third party apps for this function.
Customer’s are breaking their terms of service agreement with their banks when using third party tracking apps.
Simplii Financial needs to increase their customer base by enticing existing customers to utilize more of their products.
Solution:
A financial analytics and categorized budgeting assistance feature within Simplii Financial’s existing app that organizes information their customers value such as: categorized summaries, net worth overview, guidance with creating a budget, and positive reinforcement messages.
This solution is an opportunity for Simplii Financial to differentiate from competitors and incentivize users to transfer their accounts
View Demo of Simplii Insights by Simplii Financial
Process:
Methods:
Insights:
Feature competitive analysis of Simplii Financial, Tangerine and the Big Five Canadian banks was conducted to determine how Simplii Financial compares to their competition.
Online surveys and in-person Interviews with banking app users to understand user relationships with money and behaviours on their banking apps.
Online surveys with Simplii Financial app users to obtain a deeper understanding of user needs, wants, and motivations, and also to identify user problems.
Tangerine, Simplii Financial’s main competitor, does not have financial analytics and budgeting recommendation features.
The implementation of financial analytics and budgeting recommendations differentiates Simplii Financial from their main competitor.
Most Simplii Financial app users track their finances.
The results above informed us of our design decision to implement a categorized tracking feature.
Spending summaries, net worth, and chequing balance are the most important financial metrics to Simplii Financial app users.
This statistic further validated the need for a spending summary / tracking feature and advised the information architecture.
Most Simplii Financial users self-identify as having high financial literacy.
We were able to establish a trend between level of financial literacy and how users budget. This statistic advised our primary and secondary user flows within the budgeting feature. Users with high financial literacy generally knew how to budget most advantageously, while users with moderate financial literacy advised they require some assistance.
Users are underutilizing Simplii Financial products.
The new feature would allow users to track within Simplii Financial’s existing ecosystem. Users would be enticed to consolidate their accounts with Simplii Financial in order for their budgeting to be centralized in one easy area, provided competitive rates are offered.
Personas:
Based on our research findings we developed three archetypes that represent the most common Simplii Financial user demographics.
KPIs:
Churn rate.
User satisfaction levels.
Customer conversion rate.
Since we are not affiliated with Simplii Financial we do not have the ability to measure our KPI’s. Provided this solution was implemented, we would know the effectiveness of Simplii Insights if there was a low churn rate with increased user satisfaction levels and conversion rates.
Sketching:
A rapid sketching exercise was initiated to help generate ideas regarding how each screen should be laid out for Simplii Insights.
Lo-Fi’s:
Lo-fi wireframes were A/B tested to assist with the task flow development for Simplii Insights.
Below is a notable test which played a large role in shaping our on-boarding task flow. 80% of users preferred to be guided through multiple screens to setup their budgets, opposed to only one.
Mid-Fi’s:
Following A/B Tests, we used our results to develop our mid-fi wireframes into a clickable prototype for usability testing.
The UI for Simplii Insights was based on Simplii Financial’s existing branding and colour scheme.
Testing:
Moderated in-person tests
Learnability tests
Problem discovery tests
Iterations:
1. CTA Button Iteration
Users experienced confusion with the red CTA buttons because red is associated with errors.
2. Progress Bar Implementation
Users wanted to be aware of how many steps were involved with setting up their budget.
3. Revised Colours for Branding Consistency
The chart colour scheme was not in line with the existing branding colours and was indistinguishable for individuals who have red-green deficiency colour blindness.
View My Budget:
Now that a budget has been established, users can quickly view their categorized spending trends.
If a transaction has been improperly categorized you can amend and recategorize accordingly.
Finally, users get a quick snapshot of their net worth trends from the past few months.
Feel free to try it out yourself and interact with my Clickable Prototype
Set My Own Budget:
Simplii Insights provides users with the option to setup their own monthly budgets.
Our primary users have a high level of financial literacy and are confident with their budgeting abilities.
Users are able to select several categories applicable to their lifestyle for easy customization of their categorized budgets.
Help Me Budget:
Our secondary users have a medium level of financial literacy and aren’t completely sure if they are budgeting their funds advantageously.
Simplii Insights helps those who need some guidance with setting up their budgets by generating one for them based on the 50-30-20 budgeting principle.
Feel free to try it out yourself and interact with my Clickable Prototype
