CashEx

How do we help African communities grow their finances through CashEx’s digital wallet app?

Client project / UX design, UX research

 
 

Overview

Client: CashEX

Timeline: 5 weeks | 2022

Tools: Figma, Slack, Google Suit, GifSki App, Trello, Zoom

My Role: UX Design, UI Design

Developing CashEx’s MVP to help African communities grow their finances.

Africans lose about $8 billion every year to financial intermediaries. Nigeria has a higher rate of financial exclusion than many other countries. 

CashEx is building services to make life easier for African communities by offering seamless digital banking that allows Africans in the USA to send money to their families with zero transaction fees.

The Kickoff Meeting

We met with CashEx’s CTO to establish goals.

CashEx was looking to roll out the first version of their app by the end of July 2022. The app's initial functions are to deposit, withdraw, exchange, and view their bank account. The goal of this initial rollout is to grow their customer base and their total transaction volume.

The Problem

Many Nigerians have financial goals that they want to meet, however, there is a lack of trust in existing options due to high transaction fees and unreliable security, leaving users feeling discouraged about their finances.

The Solution

Design a mobile app for CashEx that has a simple, easy onboarding experience that makes users feel their money is secure and helps users build savings to reach their financial goals.

Process

The Double Diamond Method

To help create better solutions and maintain organization, we utilized the Double Diamond Method, which consists of four phases: Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.

This process puts an emphasis on “divergent” and “convergent” thinking, where many ideas are generated before narrowing them down to the best solutions.

Research

Understanding and discovering the opportunities in Nigeria.

CashEx provided us with research complied by a former partner, as well as 4 personas.

High level facts about Nigeria: 

  • The average cost to send remittances to Nigeria is over 7%.

  • Nigerians’ savings need to earn at least 12% every year just to keep up with inflation.

  • Inflation is at its highest level in 5.5 years - consumer prices rose 18.6% in June 2022 alone.

What can we learn from the competition?

We built on the discovery work the CashEx team already completed by analyzing competitor features and flows.

Key Findings

Most finance and banking apps allow users to create an account right away, just with name and email. They ask for the rest of the financial information they need later to make onboarding as simple and seamless as possible

Ratings and reviews from competitors indicate that users are the most concerned about:

  • The speed with which transactions are completed.

  • Transparency into where their money is at all times.

Secondary Persona

Meet Sandra Bibi

“I like the idea of a budget app, but I have had a bad experience with a savings app I used where my bank details saved on the app were breached and I lost all my money in the account.”

Sandra is looking forward to moving to the USA to pursue a higher education. She needs an app that will help her grow her finances and keep her money safe. .

  • Age: 28

    Gender: Female

    Occupation: Product Manager

  • Sandra works in Lagos, and is very conscious of how she spends money. She is very dedicated to her job, and is looking forward to relocating to the USA to pursue higher education.

  • Sandra has been a victim of cyberattack and lost her money using a fintech app. She needs to know her money is safe.

Primary Persona

Meet Joe Charles

“I am looking for a budget app that is not only efficient in helping people plan, but also beautiful and easy to use. I am a developer and I am very particular about the look and feel of an app.”

He wants to use an app, but has not used a financial app that he feels has an impressive user experience.

  • Joe is a tech guy and travels a lot. He is very extroverted and likes to enjoy life. He is currently working on his personal project of building an HRM platform. When it comes to finances, he is not a big planner, but would like to become more financially savvy.

  • Joe loves to travel and would like to become more knowledgeable about his personal finances, so he may travel more.

  • Joe isn’t always good about his financial planning, which leaves him in the dark about what he can afford to do. He would like to use a personal finance app, but hasn’t found one that he enjoys using and finds visually pleasing.

Personas

Getting to know our users.

CashEx provided our team with 4 that we distilled down into 2 personas that fit the scope of the first rollout. These personas were based on a database of potential customers they have collected via their website

Based on our user interviews, we created two user personas to help us gain insight and build empathy for our targeted user.

 Design

Design Goals

How might we help Joe understand how CashEx can help him reach his financial goals and keep him coming back?

Create a seamless and easy onboarding process for the basic features: 

  • Deposit 

  • Exchange 

  • Goal setting 

  • View

Create an app that is visually appealing and easy to understand.

Help users see their financial progress with easy to view infographics.

Ideation

To generate ideas and solutions to help Joe understand how CashEx can help him achieve his goals and keep him coming back, we held a brainstorming session prompted by a series of questions.

  • How might we help Joe feel engaged with CashEx’s app?

  • How might we impress Joe with our visual design?

  • How might we help Joe plan for his finances efficiently?

  • How might we create incentives for Joe to stay up-to-date on his finances?

  • How might we decrease any anxiety associated with viewing his bank account?

Design Library

CashEx provided us with colors, fonts, and some branding. They wanted a design library for them to use for future roll-outs and added features.

Mid- Fidelity Wireframes

How might we help Joe understand why CashEX will help him reach his goals?

Create an account: When Joe opens the app for the first time, he will be taken to a carousel that walks him the features of ChasEx. We also created a simple process to create an account, that didn’t require too much information.

What we learned from potential users.

To test the initial design and flow of the app, we conducted our first round of user tests with 5 potential users. Participants were provided CashEx and lived in Nigeria. Because of the time difference, scheduling was difficult.

Feedback from users:

  • Conflicting call-to-actions

    • There were steps for new users to follow on the screen, but many users missed that because there were two calls-to-action that caught their eye first.

  • Too many clicks

    • When making an exchange, users did not want to have to click to a separate screen in order to see how much they would receive in USD in exchange for their Naira.

  • Less detail, more synthesis

    • When making an exchange, users did not want to have to click to a separate screen in order to see how much they would receive in USD in exchange for their Naira.

  • More tansparency

    • It wasn’t clear to users that there were no transaction fees. Since this is common with other apps, users assumed it was the same for CashEx.

Iterate and deliver.

From the user feedback, we implemented changes to make a more seamless and effortless onboarding process. We also included more infographics to give users a quick, visual view of their finances.

Complete wallet setup: Next, Joe will be prompted to setup his wallet in order to use the features of CashEx. In this step we require more information, but autofill the fields that require information that has already been given.

Deposit: Now that Joe has setup his wallet, the only function available is to make a deposit. In order to make an exchange or to begin collecting insights into his finances, he must make an initial deposit.

Exchange: Once the initial deposit has been made, Joe will have to option to exchange his NGN to USD.

Goal setting: During the onboarding process, Joe will be prompted to make a savings goal. From the modal, the user will be re-directed to ‘Settings’, where they can set a savings goal.

View: Now that Joe has completed the onboarding process, he can view his transactions for both the NGN wallet and USD wallet.

Joe will also be able to view infographics that give him a visual snapshot of his finances.

Recommendations

  • Conduct further usability testing. Although our team planned for more user testing, CashEx was unable to provide participants before the deadline.

  • Add a thorough, easily accessible FAQ section. Many users had questions about how CashEx works.

  • Introduce incentives/gamification.

  • Add functionality that allows users to pay their bills and make purchases through the app.

Overall, users expressed an interest in seeing many features that this version of CashEx does not have. Given how saturated the fintech space is, users can very easily choose an app that does everything CashEx does and more. We suggest focusing on adding in these other features (virtual cash cards, the ability to transfer money, gamification, etc.) before rolling out the app.



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