DBS PayLah! Redesign
Personal re-imagination of Singapore’s e-wallet app, DBS PayLah! as a finance superapp that fosters financial literacy for young people. This redesign is motivated by my related discovery of the missing dollar opportunity for FinTech – that is, a series of unmet needs for minority female users in financial services.
Collaborator
Classroom feedback from University of Toronto, user research with NUS FinTech SG
** Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with DBS Bank or any of its partners and this redesign was done on my own volition.
Timeline
Nov 2020 – Dec 2020
Role
Individual researcher and designer
Tools
Venngage Infographics, Adobe XD, Miro
overview
A $700B revenue opportunity for fintech in 2020
Women control more than US$216 trillion in wealth (World Bank) and are responsible for up to 89 percent of purchasing decisions globally (Neilson). They are also strong savers and loyal customers to brands. Yet, this market remains largely underserved in the financial services sector. Only 65 percent of women have access to a bank account, compared to 72 percent of men. (Global Findex), and 73 percent of women of all segments are reported to be dissatisfied with their bank (BCG). As a result, a report by Oliver Wyman estimates that financial services firms across the globe are missing at least a $700 billion revenue opportunity each year by not fully meeting the needs of women customers.
One underlying factor that accounts for such disparity is the underutilization of sex-disaggregated business intelligence in the financial services sector. Considering that this is still predominantly a male-dominated sector, this results in overlooked opportunities when FinTechs focused less attention on the women’s market.
I did some secondary research and found several use cases and gaps in the current FinTech industry, summarized in this video:
A closer look at young female professionals and students
The FinTech sector is uniquely poised to close the gender gap and respond to women’s distinct needs and behaviors. Several FinTechs are starting to see the value in disaggregating data points to develop custom-catered propositions for females, but what about the needs of young female customers in particular such as graduating students and early career professionals? Young female millennials face a different set of challenges from other age groups, while they remain targeted as primary customers for most FinTechs.
Thus, this case study aims to inspire FinTech businesses on how we can improve existing financial services products to educate and empower young female customers. In the following infographics, we deep dive to find out how my female peers around me fare well with their financial habits in comparison to our male counterparts.
redesigning for the future of women as financial service customers
Clearly, many financial services do not consider the conservative financial habits, objectives and preferences of young females, who ended up shunning away from engaging in personal finance. As you can see, young females mainly use financial products for saving and expenses, with peer recommendation and cash/retail promotions as key incentives.
Young female customers would hence require a more holistic set of product offerings, perhaps in the form of in-app non-financial, retail services, to complement well with their lifestyle and conservative financial habits. For our recommended redesign, I will be using Paylah! as a working base to demonstrate how we can incorporate female-centric solutions in existing FinTech products. Paylah! is a national mobile payment solution developed by Development Bank of Singapore (DBS). The app was first introduced as an app to make peer-to-peer money transfers or retail payments via a registered mobile number or QR codes in Singapore only.
Current UI
Using the reverse brainstorming approach, I defined the key problems and reversed these into opportunities. Then, I mapped the potential ideas, description and solution features that could be incorporated into DBS Paylah:
Thus, we have Paylah! as a super-app – a possible redesign that factors in the above features (last column) to serve the needs of young female users better. This new PayLah is an all-in-one platform that is able to reward this group’s avid saving behavior with micro-investment options, while additionally providing them the means to manage their typical household expenses, and budget for sufficient insurance coverage and regular investment planning through a connected e-wallet. Note that this mockup is still a work in progress, and not all features are fully reflected.
Recommended UI
Key Takeaway
Providing better accessibility and tailored offerings to women benefits everyone else. Financial service products that factors in sex-disaggregated data provides more option for any users to meet their idiosyncratic needs and preferences. For the fintech sector, more diversity and representation will undoubtedly make the sector more gender-intelligent, innovative and profitable. Financially including more women will also build more resilient economies and societies. I hope this research inspires more FinTechs to scope in female consumers when innovating their products and services.