With the goal of “Leveraging HSBC’s strengths to provide the ideal FX experience engaged with our daily needs”, in 8 months, we worked closely to come up with this proposition for pitching. I worked as one of the designers to start from the stage of “mobilize” > “empathize” > “define” > “ideate” > “prototype”.

Inspirations from competitors

We also pull inspirations from competitors based on features and components…

Visual presentation - Mint provides a seamless experience with an interactive data visualization to present information to customers. With a smooth story-telling technique, it successfully draws customers’ attention to investment.

Customization (questionnaire) - NerdWallet uses a questionnaire approach during the account registration process to get to know more about their customers and demonstrate information based on users’ preferences.

Customization (questionnaire + advanced settings) - M1 also uses a questionnaire approach during the settings to demonstrate information based on the user’s preferences. Meanwhile, with the interactive data visualization, M1 offers the flexibility for users to select how much they want to invest in a product at certain percentages.

Goal settings - Citi app allows customers to set up their saving goals. With the predictive calculation, customers can easily determine how much they would like to save in order to align with their financial planning.

Payment shares and splits - Splitwise allows users to set up shared or split payments from daily expenses with their friends and family.

Forex education - Forex Hero provides foreign exchange knowledge to beginners with interactive elements.

Brainstorming process…

With the information, we stepped further to come up with possible ideas and define personas in our workshops.

We brokedown FX customer segments and how HSBC has been supporting them with our products/services. It shows there is an opportunity to turn FX experience in MBX as Micro-services to cater to our FX use with lifestyle.

Personas

We defined two groups of our targeted audiences for the product.

Remitter - who has regular currency needs
Traveler - who only has a one-time currency need

The similarity in both of these groups only do the transactions when they think it’s best, but maybe they could be better than that.

So then what do we know about our customers and how they use FX?

We hosted focus group sessions with two groups of interviewees to get to know their FX needs. Everyone wants a better FX experience, so we came up with the features based on their wishes.

Journey Mappings for HSBC app

We created journey mappings for both groups of users for the pain points and potential solutions. Meanwhile, we have some discoveries.

“More sophisticated” customers check the market movements and have an idea of what type of rate is the right rate for them / a “good rate” (eliminating the need to constantly check the market is the biggest benefit of the foundation journey)

“Less sophisticated customers don’t check the market and don’t understand what a “good rate” is (providing the benchmark for what a “good rate” is for them is the biggest benefit of the foundation journey)

Guerrilla Research & Findings

In addition, there are findings from our guerrilla research.

1. Scattered entry points

2. Not integrated between services

3. Lack of personal engagement

4. FXOW (biggest turnover FX product) is hard to find & displays bad UX and outdated UI

5. Segmentation impact not clear throughout the customer journey

Prioritization Matrices

We used Prioritization Matrices to inform UX Decisions and to rank what are the features that we should focus on…

Product Direction

We came up with 3 major directions of what we want the product to be about to offer… This is the “PIE”.

Personal: You’re our valued customer, we understand your needs and what you are trying to do

Intelligent: Because we understand you, we can help optimize decisions you’re already making

Easy: Not only that, but we’ll make it easy. Piece of cake =)

1. Seamless Order Watch whenever possible

By providing historical information on FX rates, we help customers set up their transactions at ideal FX rates.

We also want an Order Watch that is simple and easy to use with the below features.

1. Smart notification

2. User-friendly and interactive FX input fields

3. FX market trends and analysis

4. Auto-transaction for future transactions

2. Be better, be smarter with “Step-up” and “Next Best Price”

Just like e-commerce, we encourage customers to make larger transactions by providing better FX rates. We believe it can also help increase our FX turnovers.

The future is...

5. When all my banking experiences co-exist in a single ecosystem

We also hope to expand our FX customers’ visions by providing an all-rounded banking experience.

For example, travelers could use their remaining foreign currency money after the trip to invest in FlexInvest.

Prototype

There are samples of the key screens to showcase what the users’ main FX journey in HSBC should be.

Following Steps

There are strategic action plans for further product proposition pitching.

1. Continue working with the data & analytics team to refine use cases and data available to support

2. Team up with the Customer Experience Design team

3. Brief Pune team on product vision and discuss the delivery plan

4. Continue socializing with the Global FX team & discuss recommendations to improve the FX offering

5. Establish pilot markets [Malaysia, HK, Singapore]

Product Release

With the collaboration with stakeholders, the FX project was officially kickstarted in March 2020 and launched the MVP in January 2021. Here are some key screens for the Forex Product in the HSBC app.

That’s a wrap for now. Thanks for reading!