Human Banking — Research Project

Human insights for future financial services.

Intro —

It was my first project as Head of Service Design in the Innovation department of Bankinter. We conducted extensive research with stakeholders and users to identify different behavioral archetypes, design new services that fit each of them and connect the areas of the bank involved in their creation.

The need —

Get answers and keys to design new services and connect with users deeply.

— Who they are? Traditional segmentation strategies don't work. Customer decision processes are complex and focusing on simple demographics such as age, gender or income does not reveal useful insights. To design our new services, we need to look at how people behave and what is important to them when it comes to their money.

— What do they need? In addition to knowing who they are, we must understand and what their main needs and problems related to money and financial management are. We need to know their day-to-day life and the points of contact where we can add the most value like a bank.

— What do we give them? Traditional banking is misaligned with today's consumers: we think about products and our customers think about how they are treated; we think about economic value and they think about personal value. We have to align our business needs with the needs of users and design people-centered services that provide differential value and help us attract and retain our customers with something that goes beyond price.

— How do we reach them? It would be useless to create great services if we are not able to accompany them with good branding strategies that help us reach customers and potential customers. We must reinforce our brand image and values and establish an omnichannel strategy that allows us to reach everyone at the right time and through the right channel for each user.

Research —

What do those in charge say?

We interviewed various stakeholders in different positions in the bank, from the IT director or the Marketing director to heavyweights in the main business lines.

Among the main learnings, we discovered a single, common goal: to capture users profitably in the short and medium-term.

We identified 3 main problems:

Obsolete digital product.
We are not attracting younger profiles and our attraction models are not working.
External threats are multiplying (Fintech, NeoBanks, Open Banking, ...).

And we face 3 key challenges:

Offer a differential and specialized value proposition, for a specific type of customer, not for all.
Innovate in banking products by involving the business units.
Positioning the Bankinter brand to impact the public we want to target.

33% of millennials think they won't need a bank in 2021.

Who is really in charge?

We conducted more than 30 personal interviews with 3 different types of users to identify commonalities, discourse saturation, and different behaviors.

Bankinter type: to optimize our services according to their needs.

Not in Bankinter: To understand their vital moments and what needs they have in relation to money.

Outside traditional banking: To identify trends and areas of opportunity not yet appropriated by the bank.

Main Insights —

The invisible bank concept.

We conducted the research at a time when the crisis of confidence in the banks was still very serious. I am sure that this had a direct influence on the conclusions we reached. Anyway, the conclusion would be something like "I don't want to be bothered by the bank and I don't want any unpleasant surprises. I want them to keep my money safe and if they are going to offer me something, I want it to be a personalized offer, something I really need."

People want the bank to always be there, but as a silent being, offering security and only stepping in to help you get the most out of your money.

In addition, we detected some interesting trends in the process, such as the growing interest in alternative proposals outside traditional banking or the desire for autonomy, and we identified 3 different phases in the user's relationship with money and banks (and very closely linked to the moment of life):

Phase 1: Money as fruit. This is the phase in which we understand money as the fruit of work and money serves as a form of enjoyment or survival.
Phase 2: Money as a seed. This is the phase in which we understand the possibility of using money to generate more money. It begins when users have higher incomes and can try more complex banking products.
Phase 3: Money as fertilizer. Money is perceived as a fertilizer on a field already planted (by you or others) and in which by using the money you can get more money faster and with a premium service

Archetypes —

Our basics for a people-centered design.

Based on the previous exercise, according to their perception of money, banking system, and user autonomy, we defined six archetypes that represent different attitudes and behaviors.

Generation K

This profile defines success as being free and unique, authentic, and "made their own way". They seek to achieve professional success without betraying deeply held values such as justice, equality, or an ethical and sustainable world.
Oriented to: Enjoying the moment with their friends while squeezing the most out of the little money they may have.
Commodity Experiencer

This profile defines success by enjoying the present. They seek delight in choosing how to spend their money and are optimistic about the future.
Oriented to: enjoy their money and their freedom to make the hard work and effort to prosper worthwhile.
Commodity Balancer

This profile goes to great lengths to keep their financial life in balance. Balancers define success as getting the best deal on every transaction, maximizing rewards, and sticking to their financial plan while avoiding worries.
Oriented to: building a safety net and saving enough to avoid the anxiety of short-term unforeseen events.
Networker

This is an ambitious profile, he defines success as achieving goals little by little until he gets to where he wants to be. They have a clear and tangible career plan that helps them feel prepared for the future and have everything under control.
Oriented to: progress and fulfill his objectives, make the most of the current infrastructures by hacking them as he wants.
Comfort Lover

This profile defines success as enjoying all that he has achieved in a familiar and trusting environment. He feels that professionally and personally he has done it all, and now he everything and now all that's left is to enjoy.
Oriented to: your well-being and that of your family. Maintaining your social position and that everything is under control.
Old Gamer

These people define success as saving money and increasing their wealth so that they can be happy and live comfortably.
Oriented to: being in control of their life and money. They seek to support and resources, not instructions and rules.

The Value Proposition —

Translating behaviors into territories of opportunity to be explored…

Applying new ways of understanding and segmenting our customers gives us a competitive advantage and provides us with useful information to design new services that represent a value proposition in people's lives.

Understanding the different personalities and financial behaviors allowed us, in this case, to identify common needs and transform them into 4 territories of opportunity that we explored through several ideation sessions with the different profiles and experts of Bankinter.

Investment territory: it has been one of the most mentioned during all the sessions. Especially, in the sessions with younger profiles asking for an approach to this world for them, an invitation towards an interesting world in which too much financial knowledge is needed. The more sophisticated profiles demand proactivity from the bank based on the user's financial knowledge.
Housing Territory: The vital moment in relation to housing is extensive and is transversal to all archetypes. In addition, the economic impact and the uncertainty of how the user faces this need are very high. In this sense, we have observed that the banks' discourse is limited to facilitating a mortgage, there is no support in the decision, nor is there any product offered in relation to renting, which is a step prior to purchasing in most cases and an increasing trend.
Shared Expenses Territory: Shared expenses with the couple or different groups have been named as an unmet need. We work this territory from two perspectives: situations that remain in time and punctual situations.
Financial Coaching Territory: Saving, day-to-day economic management, or the achievement of objectives are topics that make up this territory. Specifically, we talk about any kind of help for better financial education, through the knowledge of the user.

... and opportunities into ideas and prototypes to test with users again.

After identifying the different territories, we carried out an ideation process with several co-creation sessions focused on each one of them. The sessions produced more than 50 ideas, which we filtered by impact and effort, again using feedback from the users themselves. Finally, we selected 7 ideas:

Moves: Bringing investment closer to the betting world.
Rocket: A communication and investment service for group investors.
Homeet: Accompanying the user at all key moments related to housing.
Merger: Virtual accounts to limit and share common expenses.
Become: Helping the user to project himself according to his economic reality.
Jiffy: Financing tool that generates the habit of saving.
Goers: Pay-as-you-go financial services that can be contracted by the user.

We prepared low-fidelity prototypes for presentation to stakeholders. Homeet was the best-rated idea and the one chosen to move on to the next phase. We designed the service in greater detail, preparing a small commercial presentation and high fidelity prototypes to show again to users in a focus group where we received very positive feedback (you can see the complete case in this link).

Finally, the Homeet concept was absorbed by the business area and incorporated into a value proposition for young people on which the bank is still working.

Summary —

The Human Banking concept is here to stay.

After 3 months of hard research work, it is curious to see how much time later, many of the services we designed still make a lot of sense today. We learned many things along the way, but undoubtedly the most interesting thing was to dive so deeply into the needs of people with respect to banking and set the foundations for a product design always focused on humans. Both things have accompanied me and have been key throughout these years working in banking.