With the increasing mobile & internet penetration and millions of new bank accounts, India is becoming a financial supermarket. Driven by initiatives like the Jan Dhan Yojana, Aadhaar & mobile (JAM), and investments in the FinTech space in India saw a jump from $383 million in 2016 to $1,868 million in the first three quarters of 2017. But, the traditional baking and financial services are still lacking in innovation, transparency, and personalization to a larger extent. In this post, we will look into the Importance of UX & UI Design and Automation in Banking and Financial Services.

Importance of UX-UI Design and Automation in Banking and Financial Services

Automation and UI/UX are engaging technologies that reduce human intervention. User Experience, Informative design, and Content management are some of the major elements of a user interface in the Banking and Finance Industry.

In current market competition, the user-friendly application is the most important factor to attract new customer and retain the existing one as a wide number of transaction takes place through digital channels. Therefore every new and existing Bank and Finance services are adopting automation and UI/UX to enhance their digital channels, to deliver excellent customer service with easy to use features. It has become an important tool for the banking and finance industry due to its numerous benefits.

Original Source of the Infographics: The Financial Brand

Currently, banks have the infrastructure and a huge customer base. But, the traditional ones are burdened by a product-centered thinking legacy, and not too keen towards transparency, innovation, and UX. Most banking solutions are outdated, and the interfaces are not intuitive.

On the other hand, FinTech companies create modern, client-centered solutions, but they do not have enough resources to bring them to market and acquire customers.

The Scopes of UI/UX design in the Banking and Finance Industry

UX covers all the functionalities, content and any interactivity of a website or mobile app. The UX is the process that determines the point of view of the user on how the application feels. This has a lot of impact on establishing the impression of a business organization. An excellent user experience (UX) signifies that the digital product is easy and intuitive.

The user interface design (UI) needs to represent the overall user experience when it comes to the functionalities that are visible. A good UI should have a consistent theme from screen to screen, which includes graphics and animations, uniform layout, and ease of use. Consistency on every screen builds credibility and keeps users from getting confused.

UI/UX can increase sales, and reduce your company’s customer support costs as well. As per Aden Davies, financial services specialist in CX Design & FinTech –

“The design has to be everything if you want to really call yourself customer-centric and still be able to look at yourself in the mirror. The capabilities digital technologies present today, widespread mobile broadband, smartphone in everyone’s hand, ever progressing web technologies delivering richer experiences, mean that service offerings should get better and better. They should be capable of allowing a customer to finish applications end to end easily there and then or staggered and finished when it suits the customer.”

The major focus areas of UX/UI Design are:

Client Brief & Objectives

Target Audience & Market

Comprehensive Sitemap

Wireframes & User Flow Charts

Functionality

Navigation

Brand & Brand Guidelines

Effective Colour Scheme

Original Content to be Used

Imagery & Video

Call to Actions

Devices

Internet Browsers

Image Source: Sugar Crush Creative

Some of the key benefits of UX/UI Design in Banking and Financial Services are:

Instant access to banking functionality – Enhanced UX design has allowed users to have access to their banking in a second. Instant Access may be required for any urgent bill payments, quick balance checks or transferring money to relatives or friends in need. And, technology in today’s time is well developed to provide instant access to the service with an acceptable level of security and the traditional authentication via passwords has outdated.

All account history at one Glance – User-friendly application allows evaluating the financial condition, by giving information to a user about their available balance, payment history excluding money needed to pay routine bills. It also useful for a user to explore the income and expenses of the previous month and compare with the current month.

One-Stop solution for all kind of Accounts – The update UX design allows a user to have all the account -summary in one application. Now the user can monitor their deposit accounts, credit accounts and investment accounts from a single application to provide the actual picture of their financial situation.

Insights about your Financial Behavior – Enhanced UX design allows a user to track the movement of their funds, every vendor now prefer cashless payment, therefore it has become essential for the customers to have an understanding of their spending and get a clear idea on improving the present financial situation and can plan their future expenses.

Guidance through Financial Planning – The UX design in the banking industry also helps a user in guiding to make an investment in any higher education or buying a car, purchasing a dream vacation ticket, investing in retirement, mutual funds, buying a home, etc. It also supports customers to set up the next target in their financial development by setting up a feature of automatic transfers of the amount into savings or investment accounts.

Instant Payments and money Transfer – Money transfers and bill payments are no more difficult than sending a text via messenger. Money transfer is the greatest dissatisfaction of users because of the time and effort required whereas the advanced UX design makes money transfer option available from the main menu synchronized with a banking database and phone book in a single platform to ensure good user experience. As a result, the user will be able to search a recipient from the contact list and then select the amount and transfer channel and click the “send” button.

Every Transaction Counts – Ux design provides detailed information on each financial transaction in a simple click. The payment history can be viewed by users including the geographical location.

Allows paying the Bills without a Miss – The advanced UX design adopted by the banking industry has made possible for the user to pay their routine bills automatically the just few settings on the app.

The Scopes of Automation in Banking and Finance Industry

In order to make a transition to enhanced customer experience, automation (automated personalization) is also very critical. The banking sector needs to leverage the power of FinTech to personalize the offerings that users see on all their devices. Banks will change the appearance of apps based on actual usage. This will make users feel more connected with banks and it will also set the stage for efficient self-service. There will also be advancements in providing pre-filled data to users based on their previous interaction history, preferences and banking habits.

Key benefits of Automation in Banking and Financial Services are:

Customer Acquisition & Customer Retention – Be it generating more leads, sales or revenue, marketing automation can help organizations address these issues. Additionally, cross-selling and upselling can be done seamlessly if marketing automation is in place. Omni-presence and automated cross-selling can significantly increase revenue and profits.

Image Courtesy: Neil Patel

Better Productivity – Automation makes banking and finance operations more productive and reduces the company’s cost and risk of human errors. The automation improved the user experience with the ability of fast and efficient transactions. For example, now to deposit cash or withdrawals one does not have to stand in the queue in their bank, rather it can make the transaction from the nearest ATM.

Lesser Operation Costs – A rapid adoption of automation in the banking and finance industry helps to reduce costs of hiring employees, training employees and paying for other physical office overhead expenses. Automation technology offers automatic payment and information systems to banks and that the job of many employees efficiently done by a single automation process. The systematic automation system in the banking and finance industry has reduced day to day investment in hiring staff for repetitive banking procedures like boarding of a new customer or verifying customers before providing any confidential information.

Enhanced Efficiency – Adoption of automation in the banking and finance industry has increased the efficiency and productivity of the business. Informative automation technology has eliminated the tedious, repetitive, and cumbersome paper tasks associated with the banking and finance process like KYC, etc. In each and every banking and finance business, automated business technology has simplified the processes, which in turn increase the productivity of each department of banking. For instance, withdrawals and deposits by 5 bank staff at the counter could be enhanced by having one ATM machine.

Image Source: EmailMonday

Improved Personalization – By automating the banking and finance business, banks are now able to satisfy the specific needs and wants of individual customers. The boost in personalized product and service has increased the conversion rates and increases returns on marketing investment. For example, automatic responder software used to respond to customers’ specific query which promotes timely replies that allow the customer to make a quick and right decision. Also, all account-related queries go right to customers’ email inboxes without them having to visit the bank or staying on hold over the phone for customer care.

Enhanced Flexibility – Automating banking and finance business enables banks to become more flexible so that they can adjust instantly to changing banking conditions within or outside the country. Automation technology can assist any customers with various demands within or outside the country. For example, automation allows the offshore banks to make transactions instantly online, without restricting banking to any certain amount outside the country of residence. The offshore banks can also transfer customer funds with greater ease and freedom with automation.

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Acknowledgment: This article has been co-authored by Parinita Gupta, a banking professional and digital marketer.

Key Sources: Finextra, Uxcrunch, Gomedici, Uxbert, YourStory, VCCircle, Financial Brand.