THE CHALLENGE: How might we advance in digitalization without leaving anyone behind?
Santander is one of the leading and most renowned banks in Spain. With more than a century of experience in banking, Santander seeks to implement digital innovation in their services in collaboration with IBM.
Research
The first approach was understanding the perspectives on digital banking from different generations and the experience Santander offers to its clients. This was done through benchmarking, an immersive mobile experience, exploratory and probing interviews with Santander users, expert interviews, and secondary research.
Persona Development
The persona was based on a 59 year old woman, Lucia, who acts as the core of her family. She manages finances for her parents and children, using the banking app to facilitate these transactions.
She is a frequent user with the need to be up to date and help those around her, however it is challenging to keep up doing transactions for her parents, and explaining how the app works to them.
Customer Journeys
Customer Journeys were built to understand each of her interactions: doing transactions for her parents, and her own day to day transactions and find the main pain points for each. Based on these, we found the key insights for different types of transactions:
Key Insights
Security
- Most users feel they can’t trust digital platforms as they usually receive text messages or calls from unverified numbers.
- They feel the need to double check every transaction done online because they are afraid to make a mistake.
Perceived Ability
- Users feel they don’t need help to use the app but think older people do.
- Adults have opposite reactions when it comes to handling technology: they feel either shame or pride in their knowledge.
Connectedness
- Digital banking is used to care for their family’s needs for both parents and children.
Ideation & Prototyping
By focusing on the main insights: security, perceived ability and connectedness, we created an idea portfolio, prototyped and tested solutions for each area.
Surveys, wireframes, and interviews were all part of the process before reaching the final prototype.
Solutions
A solution was created for each type of insight: security, perceived ability and connectedness.
Security: Verification Center
Trusting Santander’s digital touch points to break the barrier of fear
Instant identification and verification.
Differentiate real communication from scams.
Increase trust and security in digital channels.
Perceived Ability: SmartPoints
Empowering you to stay up to date in a dynamic and didactic way
Fun learning & onboarding through gamification.
Awareness on new functionalities.
Rewards for the use of digital channels.
Connectedness: Connect Hub
Helping and getting help has never been easier and safer
A hub for facilitating transactions within a close circle: those selected by the user will be able to perform transactions on their behalf.
Connecting families, trusted friends, and those you care about.
Key Takeaways
Users like feeling in control
The most interesting insight was that users didn’t consider that they didn’t know how to use the technology, but would usually mention someone older than them needed their help. When designing solutions, it was key to make them feel knowledgeable and in control, but with an opportunity for improvement.
Digitalization is about connection
Banking solutions not only seek to help each user solve their problems, but they should help them solve their family’s or close friends problem too. Digital solutions should aim at understanding and leveraging these connections which not only help the customer, but increase the number of users and valuable data.