Client
My Role
Platform
We were approached by one of the leading wholesale banks in the Middle East to undertake a complete UX and UI overhaul, unifying their entire range of corporate banking products under one seamless portal. The portal aims to integrate all banking services, ranging from account services and payments, to trade, supply chain financing and merchant acquiring.
In advance of the MVP launch, we spent 1 month running a requirement gathering workshop with a sustained audience of senior stakeholders and a technology consultancy, in situ at the Bahrain head office. I was involved in taking ownership of running several UX workshops that would later formulate our MVP strategy, as well as interviewing corporate clients and stakeholders for initiatives on how best to set up the user experience.
All of my UX research over this period was consolidated and prepped for the briefing of our delivery teams, once the workshop concluded. We were given the target of producing proof of concepts by the end of the workshop, that would facilitate further discussions at a subsequent technical workshop between product owners and the core banking development team.
The challenge of requirement gathering for a unified corporate banking portal was underscored by the diverse needs of the bank's corporate clientele. As we endeavored to design and develop a singular platform to cater to the financial management requirements of corporate treasurers, finance managers, and operations personnel, we faced the complexity of accommodating varied demands while aligning with the bank's overarching goal of enhancing customer experience and operational efficiency.
Navigating the intricacies of integrating multiple banking services and ensuring regulatory compliance further heightened the challenge. Nonetheless, with a steadfast commitment to understanding the nuanced needs of our bank's corporate customers and leveraging cutting-edge technology solutions, our project team embarked on a journey to redefine corporate banking experiences through our unified portal initiative.
The complexities of the project could be summarised by the adjacent 4 factors.
Diverse Stakeholder Requirements: Corporate clients from various industries and sectors had unique needs and preferences, requiring careful analysis and prioritisation of features and functionalities.
As the user base is global and it was paramount to cater to Saudi Arabian customers in particular, we would have to consider designing for Islamic Banking user flows and adaptations for the Arabic language.
User Experience Design: Designing an intuitive and user-friendly interface that caters to the diverse needs and preferences of corporate users while ensuring ease of navigation and accessibility presented design and usability challenges.
1 major concern of our client was that existing users were conditioned to the current flows, so they wanted to make sure that the successful elements of the existing UX were retained, and that any changes were fully justified.
Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring that the unified portal adhered to regulatory requirements and compliance standards across different jurisdictions added complexity to the project.
Technical Integration: Integrating multiple banking services, systems, and data sources into a unified platform posed technical challenges related to data interoperability, security, and system compatibility. We had to determine which systems could be native and which would need to be integrated via an iframe.
Requirement Gathering: Daily MOM pertaining to all discussions. As-is processes, pain points and expectations captured. As-is and proposed Workflows documented on a collaborative workspace (Whimsical).
Personas: We defined a total of 11 personas, each of whom would have a personalised and customisable dashboard experience.
Widgets: The key value added service of this portal are the journey-specific widgets, or datapoints. The pre-requisite widgets were captured along with fields and CTAs, and we used external secondary research to suggest more that aligned with each product.
Card Sorting: We conducted 2 card sorting exercises with 3 teams, which were analysed for disparities between teams (later addressed in separate discussions.)
SWOT: We collaborated with the consultancy to identify opportunities for technology integrations that would provide value.
Prototyping: Crazy 8's, Low-Fidelity Prototypes (XD) and an IA were produced as per the workshop delivery schedule.
