Helping Banking Customers Plan Their Weddings
Research indicated 84% of millennials would bank with a technology company if they provided better product offerings than a financial institution. Given that the millennial generation is on the precipice of usurping baby boomers as the largest living generational population, it was imperative that our banking clients consider other methods of engagement. Moreover, the technological savviness and trust of this generation, coupled with their preponderance of major life events, made them an ideal candidate for a supplemental native app. From this, Geezeo’s LIFE Labs initiative was born.
We identified a handful of common life events associated with millennials: graduation, first job, getting married, buying a home, having a baby, etc. We compared those with product offerings already on the market and arrived a shortlist of potential supplemental applications. The one that we felt told the most compelling story was the wedding planning app. Admittedly, there were an abundance of applications available to couples planning a wedding, but none of them tied into the financials associated with the big day. Our research indicated that the financial burden of a wedding was falling upon the bride and groom with increased frequency. And, because we were a fintech company, with access to a wealth of financial data, the fit was natural.
We set about identifying a key persona for our application: a college-educated, professional female in her mid to late 20s who is recently engaged. We also identified her pain points in regard to planning her wedding. From there we developed a feature set and mapped out her journey through the product’s life cycle.
The primary functionality was to track expenses associated with one’s wedding, analyze spending habits, and identify potential budgetary issues. As the bank already had all of the user’s pertinent financial information through Geezeo’s Personal Finance Manager (PFM), it made it possible for the application to track wedding expenses, remind the user of due dates, recommend changes to spending habits, and forecast shortfalls in capital. In certain instances, banks could even offer personal loans to qualified candidates and make loan decisions instantaneously. Secondarily, the app allowed users to link wedding registries and notify the user when someone made a purchase. Account holders could even transfer money to the newlyweds through a secure P2P channel. Lastly, to spark and maintain engagement, social and gamification components were included. Users earned awards for hitting certain milestones and were encouraged to tweet out wedding day selfies to the financial institution for other potential rewards.
Client: Geezeo
Role: Product Designer
Tasks: User research, journey mapping, wireframing, visual design, prototyping, presentation