Expectations From UI UX Startups in India Digital Journey to Financial Inclusion
With 15 years of experience in Product Management, Corporate Strategy, Retail Business Management and Process Management in key financial sectors like stock broking services, third party distribution, commercial vehicle loan, secured & unsecured business loan, Neeraj specializes in product development and product strategies for MSME loans in micro segment.
As per estimates, there is up to 10 percent penetration in exposure to the financial market against an average of 90 percent in developed economies. This can be attributed to the weak financial literacy and lack of information on the products available in the market and risks associated with them.
There have been substantial developments in the current decade wherein a large set of data is now available in digital form from various government agencies like Road Transport Authorities, Provident funds, Digital KYC, GST data, Pan Data, Credit behavioral data from various agencies like Credit Information Companies and others.
This has made easier for the technology firms to aggregate these data and provide the same as service to enable speedy decision through digital matrices. This will not only help in the faster analysis of customer behavior but also guide the customer through robotics and AI. Over the period as more and more data is built up by these applications, more customized services can be developed with the help of self-learning and AI.
Over the last few years, several developments have happened in the Fintech community to ensure the smooth flow of services. A smooth journey of customer onboarding and customer engagement onto the platform is the need of the hour. How smoothly the customer interacts with the application and can perform the desired transactions seamlessly, would result in the success of the platform.
As several applications are providing similar services, it becomes important that the service levels are raised continuously, and value-added services and User experience are enhanced on daily basis.
The development of UI/UX for a platform is not a one-time activity, but a continuous one. The key to achieving success is to first identify the target customers by understanding the country’s demography, literacy parameters, preferences of the financial services. These parameters form a key basic design of the product and development based on the target customers. Multiple solutions for multiple customer segments would be very difficult to pick up and would not serve any purpose.
Over the last decade, a lot of progress has been made due to increased data speed with lower costs, making the services easily accessible to customers through the internet over the phone and computers.
Social media apps like WhatsApp, Facebook have been able to penetrate geographically breaking the barriers of language and computer literacy.
Customer service is the key to any product or services, a user would prefer a manual help instead of AI-assisted help or reaching out to the service provider on mail and wait for the response However, Fintechs have also been successful in reaching out to the urban population of Tier-II/ Tier-III cities. Fintechs, to be successful must depend upon the banking penetration as functioning without banks would not be easily achievable. The government has been helping with banking services by offering licenses for payments banks and small finance banks.
Basic UI/UX features of an application cannot be successful by just replicating another product, Except for the actual customer, no one else can define the needs for them. It is important to continuously engage with the target customers and understand their need to define the UI/ UX for the segment. Only UI/ UX design or attractiveness may not solve the purpose as a customer may be onboarded with the attractive design, however, to keep him engaged through UX is the journey which must be carefully designed. There is no perfect design, it is a continuous development activity which would keep the pace with changing expectation of customers and market competition.
UI should be clear, concise, responsive & efficient to ensure the best user experience. Built-in flexibility to navigation through the application by customers with various understandings of the product will be helpful.
These should not only provide service but also be able to educate the customer of the products its services will be helpful. A lot of investment is required by the companies to enable digitization of financial services by educating the unbanked population and bringing them under the formal financial network.
Several startups have successfully launched their services in financial markets for broking, investing in mutual funds/FDs, payment wallets, and others. However, the concentration of these apps remains in metros and tier-1 cities wherein financial literacy is higher, and existing customers participating/transacting in the financial sector are moving to these applications. Substantial addition of the new customer by way of reaching out to them, educating them of the services, and onboarding is debatable.
Customer service is the key to any product or service, a user would prefer a manual help instead of AI-assisted help or reaching out to the service provider on mail and wait for a response. Easily accessible customer service helps in giving a feeling of reachability to the customer and give the confidence to test the application. Today most of the platforms lack on servicing part, which bothers the customer in the first part.
Currently increasing trends of usage in new-age applications in the financial services sector may be attributed to the adoption of technology by Gen-X, Gen-Y, and millennial. As time passes the userbase would increase leading to higher adoption of technology in these services. Customers in these generations are ready to experiment, adapt, and look forward to more features to satisfy their needs.
Customers in the higher age range may be reluctant to shift to new technology due to low belief in the improved processes. The need for personalized services drives this segment of customers, which cannot be easily done away with. When it comes to money, technological advancements do not give enough comfort to this generation.
In nutshell, UI/UX being created through these start-ups need to look at a larger picture of financial inclusion into banking, corporate fundraising, equity markets, commodity markets, various bonds, finance companies, and others. There is a need to fill the gap existing between the markets and populations which need to fill in to ensure inclusive growth of the country by way of resourceful mobilization of funds and help the needy to grow by supporting through formal financial institutions. The development of this part needs to be inclusive and for masses to ensure the minimum cost of delivering the financial products across the country.
The next decade is the decade of millennial and addition of much-advanced workforce into the fintech segment and new and improved experiences would be developed through continuously developing technology, developing data sets, and developing economy with digital connect.
As per estimates, there is up to 10 percent penetration in exposure to the financial market against an average of 90 percent in developed economies. This can be attributed to the weak financial literacy and lack of information on the products available in the market and risks associated with them.
There have been substantial developments in the current decade wherein a large set of data is now available in digital form from various government agencies like Road Transport Authorities, Provident funds, Digital KYC, GST data, Pan Data, Credit behavioral data from various agencies like Credit Information Companies and others.
This has made easier for the technology firms to aggregate these data and provide the same as service to enable speedy decision through digital matrices. This will not only help in the faster analysis of customer behavior but also guide the customer through robotics and AI. Over the period as more and more data is built up by these applications, more customized services can be developed with the help of self-learning and AI.
Over the last few years, several developments have happened in the Fintech community to ensure the smooth flow of services. A smooth journey of customer onboarding and customer engagement onto the platform is the need of the hour. How smoothly the customer interacts with the application and can perform the desired transactions seamlessly, would result in the success of the platform.
As several applications are providing similar services, it becomes important that the service levels are raised continuously, and value-added services and User experience are enhanced on daily basis.
The development of UI/UX for a platform is not a one-time activity, but a continuous one. The key to achieving success is to first identify the target customers by understanding the country’s demography, literacy parameters, preferences of the financial services. These parameters form a key basic design of the product and development based on the target customers. Multiple solutions for multiple customer segments would be very difficult to pick up and would not serve any purpose.
Over the last decade, a lot of progress has been made due to increased data speed with lower costs, making the services easily accessible to customers through the internet over the phone and computers.
Social media apps like WhatsApp, Facebook have been able to penetrate geographically breaking the barriers of language and computer literacy.
Customer service is the key to any product or services, a user would prefer a manual help instead of AI-assisted help or reaching out to the service provider on mail and wait for the response However, Fintechs have also been successful in reaching out to the urban population of Tier-II/ Tier-III cities. Fintechs, to be successful must depend upon the banking penetration as functioning without banks would not be easily achievable. The government has been helping with banking services by offering licenses for payments banks and small finance banks.
Customer service is the key to any product or services, a user would prefer a manual help instead of AI assisted help or reaching out to the service provider on mail and wait for response.
Basic UI/UX features of an application cannot be successful by just replicating another product, Except for the actual customer, no one else can define the needs for them. It is important to continuously engage with the target customers and understand their need to define the UI/ UX for the segment. Only UI/ UX design or attractiveness may not solve the purpose as a customer may be onboarded with the attractive design, however, to keep him engaged through UX is the journey which must be carefully designed. There is no perfect design, it is a continuous development activity which would keep the pace with changing expectation of customers and market competition.
UI should be clear, concise, responsive & efficient to ensure the best user experience. Built-in flexibility to navigation through the application by customers with various understandings of the product will be helpful.
These should not only provide service but also be able to educate the customer of the products its services will be helpful. A lot of investment is required by the companies to enable digitization of financial services by educating the unbanked population and bringing them under the formal financial network.
Several startups have successfully launched their services in financial markets for broking, investing in mutual funds/FDs, payment wallets, and others. However, the concentration of these apps remains in metros and tier-1 cities wherein financial literacy is higher, and existing customers participating/transacting in the financial sector are moving to these applications. Substantial addition of the new customer by way of reaching out to them, educating them of the services, and onboarding is debatable.
Customer service is the key to any product or service, a user would prefer a manual help instead of AI-assisted help or reaching out to the service provider on mail and wait for a response. Easily accessible customer service helps in giving a feeling of reachability to the customer and give the confidence to test the application. Today most of the platforms lack on servicing part, which bothers the customer in the first part.
Currently increasing trends of usage in new-age applications in the financial services sector may be attributed to the adoption of technology by Gen-X, Gen-Y, and millennial. As time passes the userbase would increase leading to higher adoption of technology in these services. Customers in these generations are ready to experiment, adapt, and look forward to more features to satisfy their needs.
Customers in the higher age range may be reluctant to shift to new technology due to low belief in the improved processes. The need for personalized services drives this segment of customers, which cannot be easily done away with. When it comes to money, technological advancements do not give enough comfort to this generation.
In nutshell, UI/UX being created through these start-ups need to look at a larger picture of financial inclusion into banking, corporate fundraising, equity markets, commodity markets, various bonds, finance companies, and others. There is a need to fill the gap existing between the markets and populations which need to fill in to ensure inclusive growth of the country by way of resourceful mobilization of funds and help the needy to grow by supporting through formal financial institutions. The development of this part needs to be inclusive and for masses to ensure the minimum cost of delivering the financial products across the country.
The next decade is the decade of millennial and addition of much-advanced workforce into the fintech segment and new and improved experiences would be developed through continuously developing technology, developing data sets, and developing economy with digital connect.
