FINTECH FIGHTING INEQUITIES:
Hispanics in the U.S. are plagued by unnecessary language barriers and a marketplace failing to meet their needs.
In 2020, Crediverso made history by becoming the first company in the U.S. to offer credit checks in Spanish for free.
I was part of an ambitious team tasked with making an all-in-one bilingual banking app to address these disparities.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Crediverso.
February 2021 - November 2022
Summary
Contributed to development of bilingual banking app.
Role + Team
Worked as visual and UX designer along with a product manager and 3rd party graphic designer.
Role + Team
Worked as visual and UX designer along with a product manager and 3rd party graphic designer.
Tools
Figma
Jira
Google Analytics
Tools
Figma
Jira
Google Analytics
THE CHALLENGE
A BILINGUAL BANKING APP
The current market forces many Hispanic consumers to sign up for a long list of 3rd party products and services to find the best credit cards, bank accounts, and money transfer options.
Our high level goals were to:
Create a singular account where users can engage with multiple partners and multiple products without leaving the app or website.
Maintain convenient bilingual availability for every step of the process.
Develop a family & friends feature to enable virtual cash sharing.
MY ROLE
During my 22 months with Crediverso I was a user researcher, content creator, marketing manager, and UX/UI designer.
For the development of the app I worked under a product manager in conjunction with a 3rd party graphic designer.
Over a period of 6 months we started with basic user flows, created HiFi mockups and prototypes, and concluded with multiple weeks of beta testing and updates prior to the app's launch.
THE APPROACH
CHASING WATERFALLS
To expedite the release of the app, feature development was broken into parallel work streams.
We serialized each feature phase, starting with the design and UX for onboarding. Once each feature was designed and approved, the engineering team began implementation.
This enabled us to begin beta testing portions of the app experience prior to completing all of the mockups.
THE DISCOVERY
CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
Using a combination of zoom interviews, web analytics data, social media feedback, and competitor app analyses, I was able to make data-driven design choices throughout the development of the app.
These are the key insights that defined the first version of the product:
SENDING MONEY
79% of US Hispanics think “it is important to send money to their home country” and over 75% of the population use remittance services.
PREFER SPANISH
41 million Americans are Spanish-dominant, and preference for Spanish rises when dealing with complex financial terminology.
ALL-IN-ONE
Spanish-speaking users desire an all-inclusive product to be able to independently navigate financial products.
81% of surveyed Hispanics said relatives who were not fluent in English asked them to go online and research a purchase for them.
THE VISION
ONE ACCOUNT, ALL THE PRODUCTS
One of the most significant points of friction keeping Hispanic consumers out of the financial ecosystem is the sign up process.
With one Crediverso account, users can engage with multiple partners and multiple products without leaving the site.
THE APP
INTRODUCING CREDIVERSO
The only full-service bilingual banking product.
ADD FAMILY MEMBERS
Create and assign digital cards for friends and family without needing to research remittance rates.
MONITOR AND SEND FUNDS
Customers can easily manage their personal and family funds all in one app.
THE FRAMEWORK
HOW WE GOT TO THERE
One of the biggest challenges I faced throughout this project was implementing family features into the UI.
Good banking apps host tons of information and features; adding family compatibility was an excellent challenge that taught me a lot about building intuitive interfaces.
"adding family compatibility was an excellent challenge that taught me a lot about building intuitive interfaces"
DESIGN DRIVEN BY USER NEEDS
Prior to developing any user flows we synthesized our user research data into three well-defined avatars.
We constantly referred to our avatars throughout development to ensure our that our sole focus was addressing the pain points of our users.
THE CONTROVERSIAL NAV BAR
When it came to finalizing our first user flows the greatest point of contention had to do with the main navigation bar.
The debate came down to whether we should have all accounts on one page, or to split the accounts into a primary tab and a family tab.
SPLIT
COMBINED
After comparing the two SWOT tests (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) it seemed logical to prioritize the "Move Money" feature and use creative UI to solve for a feature-packed home page.
A DYNAMIC HOME SCREEN
By housing external card users' accounts into intuitive "debit cards", users are able to clearly distinguish between personal and family funds.
REFLECTIONS
WHAT I LEARNED
It's a long road to V1 and it doesn't stop there
This was my first opportunity to combine my background in research, design, and marketing to not only build an app, but to communicate the app to the public.
At the beginning of this project I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of potential use cases we needed to develop.
As each agile sprint passed I grew more confident in the process and learned how to let go of perfection and embrace the process.
Something I wish I had done in this project and have now incorporated into my workflow is to maintain a journal throughout the entirety of the build.
I've found that having a hand-written archive of notes often captures passing ideas that may not have been documented otherwise.
"as each agile sprint passed I grew more confident in the process"
FINTECH FIGHTING INEQUITIES:
Hispanics in the U.S. are plagued by unnecessary language barriers and a marketplace failing to meet their needs.
In 2020, Crediverso made history by becoming the first company in the U.S. to offer credit checks in Spanish for free.
I was part of an ambitious team tasked with making an all-in-one bilingual banking app to address these disparities.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Crediverso.
February 2021 - November 2022
Summary
Contributed to development of bilingual banking app.
Role + Team
Worked as visual and UX designer along with a product manager and 3rd party graphic designer.
Tools
Figma
Jira
Google Analytics
THE CHALLENGE
A BILINGUAL BANKING APP
The current market forces many Hispanic consumers to sign up for a long list of 3rd party products and services to find the best credit cards, bank accounts, and money transfer options.
Our high level goals were to:
Create a singular account where users can engage with multiple partners and multiple products without leaving the app or website.
Maintain convenient bilingual availability for every step of the process.
Develop a family & friends feature to enable virtual cash sharing.
MY ROLE
During my 22 months with Crediverso I was a user researcher, content creator, marketing manager, and UX/UI designer.
For the development of the app I worked under a product manager in conjunction with a 3rd party graphic designer.
Over a period of 6 months we started with basic user flows, created HiFi mockups and prototypes, and concluded with multiple weeks of beta testing and updates prior to the app's launch.
THE APPROACH
CHASING WATERFALLS
To expedite the release of the app, feature development was broken into parallel work streams.
We serialized each feature phase, starting with the design and UX for onboarding. Once each feature was designed and approved, the engineering team began implementation.
This enabled us to begin beta testing portions of the app experience prior to completing all of the mockups.
THE DISCOVERY
CUSTOMER INSIGHTS
Using a combination of zoom interviews, web analytics data, social media feedback, and competitor app analyses, I was able to make data-driven design choices throughout the development of the app.
These are the key insights that defined the first version of the product:
SENDING MONEY
79% of US Hispanics think “it is important to send money to their home country” and over 75% of the population use remittance services.
PREFER SPANISH
41 million Americans are Spanish-dominant, and preference for Spanish rises when dealing with complex financial terminology.
ALL-IN-ONE
Spanish-speaking users desire an all-inclusive product to be able to independently navigate financial products.
81% of surveyed Hispanics said relatives who were not fluent in English asked them to go online and research a purchase for them.
THE VISION
ONE ACCOUNT, ALL THE PRODUCTS
One of the most significant points of friction keeping Hispanic consumers out of the financial ecosystem is the sign up process.
With one Crediverso account, users can engage with multiple partners and multiple products without leaving the site.
THE APP
INTRODUCING CREDIVERSO
The only full-service bilingual banking product.
ADD FAMILY MEMBERS
Create and assign digital cards for friends and family without needing to research remittance rates.
MONITOR AND SEND FUNDS
Customers can easily manage their personal and family funds all in one app.
THE FRAMEWORK
HOW WE GOT TO THERE
One of the biggest challenges I faced throughout this project was implementing family features into the UI.
Good banking apps host tons of information and features; adding family compatibility was an excellent challenge that taught me a lot about building intuitive interfaces.
"adding family compatibility was an excellent challenge that taught me a lot about building intuitive interfaces"
DESIGN DRIVEN BY USER NEEDS
Prior to developing any user flows we synthesized our user research data into three well-defined avatars.
We constantly referred to our avatars throughout development to ensure our that our sole focus was addressing the pain points of our users.
THE CONTROVERSIAL NAV BAR
When it came to finalizing our first user flows the greatest point of contention had to do with the main navigation bar.
The debate came down to whether we should have all accounts on one page, or to split the accounts into a primary tab and a family tab.
SPLIT
COMBINED
After comparing the two SWOT tests (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) it seemed logical to prioritize the "Move Money" feature and use creative UI to solve for a feature-packed home page.
A DYNAMIC HOME SCREEN
By housing external card users' accounts into intuitive "debit cards", users are able to clearly distinguish between personal and family funds.
REFLECTIONS
WHAT I LEARNED
It's a long road to V1 and it doesn't stop there
This was my first opportunity to combine my background in research, design, and marketing to not only build an app, but to communicate the app to the public.
At the beginning of this project I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of potential use cases we needed to develop.
As each agile sprint passed I grew more confident in the process and learned how to let go of perfection and embrace the process.
Something I wish I had done in this project and have now incorporated into my workflow is to maintain a journal throughout the entirety of the build.
I've found that having a hand-written archive of notes often captures passing ideas that may not have been documented otherwise.
"as each agile sprint passed I grew more confident in the process"