Business diversification: a neobank-app for Vodafone - Devlight
2020

MOBILE
Neo-Bank

Idea Concept

Vodafone Neobank app

Bank for the largest telecom provider.

main-mob
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Devlight
2020 / August

About the project

Staying open to new challenges and opportunities seems hard for big international companies. They already have a working business model and don’t need to create new approaches to keep going. But this is not the case for Vodafone, which is always eager to new. Being the biggest telecommunication company in the world didn’t stop them from the urge to conquer a totally new market — banking. They came to us with a bare wish to build up a NEO-bank app. Our development expertise allowed us to assess the market quickly, discover insights and find the best-matching app idea according to the given requirements and limitations.

Customer

The customer is a leading telecommunications company keeping society connected and building a digital future for everyone.

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Vodafone BY THE NUMBERS

Vodafone is a leading Ukrainian mobile operator. It provides a wide range of services including 4G and 4G data transmission, messaging, mobile voice communication, fixed internet, and mobile TV.

700M+
Annual mobile subscribers globaly.
21M+
Annual fixed internet users
20+
Countries presents
45B $
Market capitalisation

Our challenge

As clients assessed the fintech industry as quite new for them, they wanted to hear more suggestions from us on where they have to focus. So our task is logically divided into two parts:

  • Market and customer investigations—we’re doing everything to find strong needs and pains that can be covered by a service that can be owned by client;
  • Prototyping the service based on the app according to the data we collect on the first step and testing its viability. Presenting the app prototype with all inner and outer processes explanations to the client.
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Problems we faced with

Because of the pandemics, we had to provide 100% of our services online with no discount for quality.

No long-term product value of the mobile app

Client wanted to avoid any crediting services in the service pack of an app

Limited time for the unlimited creativity process of business ideas design, hypothesis testing, and prototyping

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Solutions we propose

Our client’s digital solution is ZEMPCENTER Retail, a Point of Sales SaaS solution providing an end-to-end business application.

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Conduct Market research:

  • competitors research
  • user research
    business model
  • research
    trend research

Customer development:

  • hypothesis creation
  • user profiling & segmentation
  • user service & in-depth interview

Business modeling

  • BMC design
  • cost structure calculating
  • revenue structure forecasting
  • BEP & ROI modeling
Customer orchestration

  • customer journey mapping
  • service blueprint desing
  • customer funnels design
Design a unique value proposition

  • user jobs mapping
  • pains & gains discovery
  • pain relievers & gains creators
  • proposed solutions
Concept testing

  • VP testing with the client
  • high fidelity prototype user testing via Maze

The process of creating
Vodafone

To succeed, you need a plan. To succeed in enterprise mobile app development, you need the exact plan of the development process described below. As simple as that.

Discovery phase
Product value creating
What is the product overall value? How product will compare into the market?
  • > Trend Canvas
  • > Key business ideas
  • > Customer journey map
  • > Value proposition canvas
Requirement gathering & collecting
What is the business context? Did vision match it?
  • > Backlog creating
  • > Job & user stories creating
  • > BPMN modelling
  • > Business tasks describing
  • > PRD completing
High fidelity prototyping creating & testing
How the users will interact with product concept?
  • > Figma hi-fi prototype creating
  • > User flows mapping
  • > Clickable prototype creating
  • > Clickable prototype realtime testing
  • > Iteration changes
Product’s software integrations plan creating
How the buisness will interact with product concept?
  • > Software architecture diagram
  • > Data flow diagram
  • > API methods specs.
  • > 3d-party services integration model
  • > Full technical specification creating
phase 1
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Discovery process

DESIGN SPRINT and solution

During this stage, we outline our goals, test hypotheses, sketch a prototype and after creating the prototype, we test it. Then we deliver the final solution to client and move on.

Initial workshop with the client

The next step is deep work with the client, which gives us answers to the most important question. During this workshop, we discovered problems and requests that clients had and found the best suitable solutions for them.

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Value Proposition Canvas

helped ensure that a product was positioned around what the customer values and needs

Business Model Canvas

created visual representation of a business model, highlighting all key strategic factors, customers, revenue streams and more.

Customer journey map

mapped user journeys, measured touch points, and examined all of the most challenging areas.

IN – depth
interview

For a deep understanding of the unresolved problems market has, we need to conduct qualitative research. In-depth interviews are just perfect for that, as they receive detailed answers from respondents instead of simply filling out a standard questionnaire. Also, they are one of the most inexpensive and simplest studies.

These interviews do not confirm or disprove hypotheses. They just describe the user experience. And through this, we can have a better understanding of problems that are occurring, their context, and how users manage these problems.

Recruiting people for interviews is another job that is needed to be done. Not every user fits into respondent requirements, that is why we need to form a list of characteristics describing the perfect user, whose experience will be most relevant to us. Based on these data, a screening questionnaire is formed which filters questions for the selection of respondents.

Screening criteria for respondents
  • Age (20-55 years old).
  • Income (average/above average/ high).
  • Over the past six months, the respondent has used loyalty services.
What is important to understand
  •  Who our user is, what his goal and motivation are.

  • What his current experience is – what steps he goes through, what actions he takes on them, what problems he has, what pleasant moments arise along the way.

stickers
30

Respondents

1.5 H

Duration of each

25

questions

interview
analysis

After the interview is done, we translate respondents’ answers into text form. And that’s where real work begins, and where insights are born.
We analyze all answers and divide them into colors. Yellow stickers describe what actions the person performed, red stickers — what problems he had at that moment, and green stickers — what pleasant moment he had while moving toward the goal.

Also, we point out the context that facilitated these actions. Then we define the Big Job that all actions were performed for. And, finally, we group the stickers by topic. As a result, we get a certain number of groups of stickers and then give them certain names. This process is called theming.

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quantitative interview results

Eventually, we can see a chart with answers to the most important questions regarding the market. They will help us identify and satisfy particular customers’ needs. And make customers love our product through the joy and convenience that the user experience will deliver.

What is most important for you in the bank?

95 answers
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key metricks

A quantitive survey involved 2500 respondents in the focus group. It allowed us to highlight some of the insights.

metrics
72% of interviewed bank application users would prefer a bank app that has a feature of adding a card of other banks to see their balance.
metrics
41% of users find it important to have the possibility to switch cards currency to local if they decide to move to another country, instead of issuing a new card
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55% of interviewed users would like to see the budget forecast for the future year based on previous expenses and incomes in the bank app.
user persona

Based on the data obtained from in-depth interviews, we draw up a general user persona that reflects the customer segment we have intensified as a key.

Andrew Shevchenko

Age: 20

Status: Single

Occupation: Student

Lacation: Kyiv

Andrew is a BBA student. Andrew does not understand what are the rates and which card is profitable. Also, Andriy’s parents help him by sending 2000 uah a month for a living. He is ready to invite +1 member of his family to the bank he uses with motivation to send him money quickly and on time

goal
  • Ready to open loans and ready to pay it, working additionally or counting on the next payment from parents
  • Transfers scholarship money to his personal card in his bank
  • Quick and accessible support that communicates in a language I understand is important to me
Frustration
  • He is too lazy to go to the bank to reissue the card, but he would do it online
  • He does not understand why he should use several cards if he already has one
  • Image is an important factor when choosing a bank
Features
  • Joint Purchases
  • Special cashback for students
  • Use the card and get bonus for mobile communication
  • Online card reneval
Influences
  • Friends
  • Online and social media
  • Online advertisment
Technology
  • Mobile apps
  • Social network
  • Android

Competitor research

No one is isolated from the market, so in developing a new product you have to consider competitors, their strengths, and weaknesses. That is exactly what we were busy with at the stage of competitors’ research. It is an efficient instrument for brand positioning, market research, and discovering its unresolved problems.

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Customer Journey

We think of a customer’s relationship with a company as a story. Like all other stories, it has its beginning, plot twists, challenges, and should have a happy end. For a better understanding of the user experience, we mapped user journeys, measured touch points, and examined all of the most challenging areas.

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Features backlog

After analyzing what’s under the hood in competitors’ products, we’re able to create our own features backlog to get a helicopter view of all things that must be done in development.

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Business model canvas

Now comes the time to put it all together. For doing that we are using a business model canvas. It is a great tool that visualizes everything: from the value propositioning of the product and its structure, to its customers and financial parts of the business. Using this diagram one can document the entire shape of the business model conveniently and comprehensively.

KEY PARTNERS

The network of suppliers and partners that make the business model work
Merchants for the issuance of installments / loans
Apple/Google payment for processing NFC device
Google / Open Street maps for geodata points and navigation
ATM network partners
Visa as the main partner in the presented financial platform
Partnership with training projects / platforms, specific speakers on financial literacy
Visa as a technological, marketing, product and partner investing in project development
PSP processing of utilities and other payments
Partners for special offers (discounts, bonuses)
Partnership with a foreign bank to open accounts for Ukrainians abroad
NDA company as the main method and donor of information (scoring, big data, etc.)
Contact center for customer support
NDA retail – delivery and issuance of cards
Partnership with various charitable foundations
Transferwise or other for foreign exchange transactions (transfers, conversions)
Creative partner (advertising, visual communication and strategy)
Travel special partners
Advertising and affiliate service providers
Suppliers of payment systems, card data
Partnership with the processing center

KEY ACTIVITIES

The most important activities a company must do to make its business work
Application monitoring, technical stability and usage analysis
Production and control of cards and onboarding materials
Development and support of API
Social Media Marketing
Integration with the physical bank of partners
Technical infrastructure (development, support)

KEY RESOURCES

The most important activities a company must do to make its business work
Customers of our bank’s application 1 million
Sponsorship
Call Center
The correct backend architecture of the bank application
Lawyers who are interested in the product (will help to bypass the guests corners and not wrap the feature)
A set of partnerships needed to launch (Visa, PSP, bank, merch)

VALUE PROPOSITION

Product, service, features and aspects that create value for a specific customer segment
Apple/Google Pay
Honest cashback for a clear and distinctive customer choice
Transparent currency conversion for the traveler and shopper who buys abroad
Flexible credit line scoring and access to credit rating
Instant account opening and card generation for geek review
Credit installments for those who want to buy now and pay later
Multicurrency card or the ability to open a card in foreign currency is easy
Set yourself a clear and achievable financial goal for those who like to save money
Customize the application
Flexible management of risks, limits, loans
Children’s card
Low interest rate when withdrawing funds abroad
Investing for those who have extra assets that are not afraid to lose
Instant transfers to always be able quickly help in any situation

CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS

Financial literacy training
Assistance in loan repayment, formation of a financial cushion, capital increase
Сard number = phone number
Post about each feature and what it gives
Formation of a community around the bank
Confidence, trust to the bank, security

CHANNELS

Referral program
Social Media
PR
Affiliate marketing
Webpage & Blog
Event marketing

CUSTOMER SEGMENTS

A student who has a personal card and uses it to obtain funds from parents
Geek who is looking for an alternative to the NDA bank and tests new products on the market
Freelancer (basic earnings on the Internet, regular transfers by card)
Early majority – tend to consciously buy / choose, rather than follow trends and hype
A traveler who needs one travel card with an additional agreement and analytics
Credit installments for those who want to buy now and pay later
Multicurrency card or the ability to open a card in foreign currency is easy
Those who are in debt and want to get out of them
Those who want to save their money and gain financial stability
Those who want to enrich their finances
Those who want to learn how to manage money
Married couple with a common budget
Shopaholic (During the month spends x UAH in stores, mass markets with discout)

COST STRUCTURE

The costs incurred to operate a business model
Apple Payments Fee 0.02-0.01c
Payment for mailings (SMS, Viber)
Partner commissions (PSP, currency transactions, etc…)
Logistics
Marketing
Salaries for workers and staff training
IT infrastructure (server, geo, hardware, subscriptions, devops)
Legal support
Development of application design, cards, materials
Application development (backend, frontend, integration)
Revenue sharing with bank partner
Customer retention (loyalty program, cashback, promotions, etc.)

REVENUE STREAMS

Credit / installment
Deposits
Commission for P2P credit
Investment Transaction Fee and Investment Income Fee
Payment concierge
Salaries for workers and staff training
Interchange
Commission on P2P transfers
Finance from the Visa
Currency exchange fee
Joint marketing with partners
Commission for the client if he took a large loan (mortgage, car)

high-fidelity
wireframes

High-fidelity wireframes are often built in the advance stages of the design process to communicate design decisions to the development team prior to coding the final product.

wireframes

low fidelity
prototype

It’s design time! We prototype the main screens and their possible variants of them to select the most fitting vector for our design system. Few options of design are going through our targeted audience reviews to check if it’s clear and understandable for them.

prototype
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prototype
phase 2
logo-inner

design process

colors

Primary Colors

#485CC3
#F3F6FC

Primary Colors

#282B3C
#0C317F
#9FAAC1
#FAFBFF

Buttons Cases

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Elements

app

Final design

Finally, we are happy to share with you finalized design screens!
The effortless-looking and friendly design are what we resulted with after all the previous stages of hard work and deep research. Looks neat, doesn’t it?

*Scroll to view

 

home screen & card settinng

Here users can look through their balance, accounts, and available financial products such as accounts, debit, or credit cards and easily control them with one click.

pay
pay
pay
pay

 

Budgeting

This page is for planning and estimation of the expenses. Users can always look at a target they want to achieve in a certain month or any other period of time.

Setting finance goals

Savings for studying, buying a new laptop or a tool for it, happens here Long-term or short-term goals, private, shared with a friend or family member — all features are available and flexible.

pay
pay
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Analytics and forecasting

This particular feature of forecasting was developed after receiving a corresponding answer during interviews. Some of the respondents stated that they lack the option to see the forecast for the future. Now they have this chart, as well as spendings that are categorized into relevant groups.

Customer feedback

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The results of product research

Vodafone was pleased with the prototype and business model that we developed for their project. We found a way to land a massive telecommunications giant on a completely new market based on a tested and prototyped viable service.

40+
hours of online conferences, meetings AND in-depth interviews
participants of quantitative survey
2500
heart

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