Mentor
Tony Le
Teammate
Ngan Dao
Thai Max
TIMELINE
OVERVIEW
The Background
This concept app is built on an Opportunity Statement rather than a Problem Statement - we start with the context that banking and fintech products for users under 18 years old are still not very common in Vietnam. For example, our direct competitors only include BIDV Smart Kids and MoMo Family Wallet, but the performance of both products still hasn't achieved significant success. This is an opportunity - a field with few players, and no one has yet dominated.
However, we understand that having few competitors means there must be challenges in execution. During the project, we also found out why a financial banking product for young people faced difficulties. This is partly about the concern of parents (like worrying if their child might get deceived, spend on things that aren't good or legal...), the limited user pool due to differences in living standards and consumer behavior between urban and rural areas, the product's profit potential depends on the willingness of paying subscription fee (which is not very promising)… and so on.
These are obstacles that can kill this idea right from the start, but we still choose to do it anyway.
An important context that we should mention, which greatly influences our design decisions, is that we started this project within the scope of a Digital Banking course - we do to learn and we are constrained by time and human resources. That's why we decided to temporarily set aside the market fit element in order to learn and understand how to build a banking product from scratch, and ensure that everything in our app complies with the law and legal regulations for financial banking products in Vietnam.
This case study includes a prototype, some major user flows, and detailed descriptions of a few design iterations.
The Goal
Allow to do
Design decisions are made based on team resources, timing, and alignment with market and industry real context.
The Positioning
After conducting research following the 4C framework (Company, Category, Customer, Culture), we have come up with the product positioning as below:
TechX — powered by Techcombank will be a bridge for parents and teen to develop financial skills through two features: Investing and Saving.
The Rationale
DESIGN
This section will first, show you the (1) prototype of how TechX service works on Techcombank - parents' app, and second, introduction of some (2) major flows.
The Prototype
To make it easier to visualize how this works, you can take a look at this preview prototype before moving on.
In case you want to select a specific flow, please click here will direct you to the main Figma Prototype.
(The prototype can take a while to load)
TechX in Techcombank
TechX is integrated in Techcombank so that parents can access to specific teen's account and control everything without having to download another app.
In TechX home screen in Techcombank, the tab bar acts like a center for overall control of settings that apply to all TechX accounts.
Login TechX via QR Code
When parents have finished setting up their teen's account, on the success screen, there will be a quick login QR code.
This QR code serves two purposes when teens scan it using their phone:
If teens have already installed TechX → Open TechX login screen with the Username input field pre-filled.
If teens haven't installed TechX yet → directs to the Play Store or CH Play to download TechX.
To view the prototype for this flow, please click here.
Auto Top-up Schedule
Auto Top-up Schedule feature serves 2 purposes: saves time for parents and teaches the "Earn" responsibility for teens.
With this feature, parents set the frequency and amount of automatic top-up schedule, ensuring their teen always has funds available.
Plus, they have the option to allocate a portion of the allowance to chores. This means that teens can earn their full allowance by completing assigned chores.
To view the prototype for this flow, please click here.
Parent-paid Interest
We are all familiar with 'fixed deposit' - the practicing of depositing money in a bank for a specific period to earn interest. This is a very common way to invest because it's low-risk and steady. If teens have access to this form of investment early, it can help teens understand how savings work, create saving habit as they know by setting aside money, they can gain more in the future…
But besides legal age restrictions, since teens usually have limited funds, they don't earn much interest with the real-world interest rate. That's why the parents-paid interest can address this issue.
The parents might set an interest rate from 1% to 100% based on the the money that their teens save in their account.
Interest is calculated by the formula below:
% interest rate set
365
Savings amount
· Accumulated interest will be transfer from the parent's account to teen's account on the 1st of each month, based on kids' savings amount put in the month before.
To view the prototype for this flow, please click here.
Approve Money Transfer Request
Apart from the monthly allowance parents give, there might be unexpected expenses that exceed the balance in the teen's account (maybe most of the teens' balance is in a savings account and they don't want to withdraw, or to make purchases on behalf of family members, or they participate in group projects or fundraising efforts…).
When this happens, teens can use the "Request" feature on the TechX app to ask their parents for financial assistance. Parents can then review and either approve or reject the request using their Techcombank app.
To view the prototype for this flow, please click here.
EDGE CASES
This section shows some edge cases along with an explanation of the design iterations and why I chose the final design approach.
Remind Me Later - To choose or Not to choose?
Context:
At the Reminder screen to remind what they must prepare before creating TechX account and user choose to do it later.
Iteration:
Instead of allowing user to choose when the reminder will be sent → Send push notification with message “Continue to create TechX account” at 8PM the same day or the day after if the request is created after 8PM that day.
I made this decision based on the scenario that the parents try to create account during office hours and they always keep the birth certificate at home so they can't continue until they get home.
"After 1 hour" period is too short and there is a high possibility that when we send a reminder, they still aren't home yet.
"Tomorrow" = 24 hours later is too long and if tomorrow is a weekday, it's the same situation with the "After 1 hour" choice, parents are still at work and haven't prepared the Birth certificate. There is a high possibility that they will drop.
→ I decide to send a fixed reminder at 8PM, as it's typically around that time the parents are at home, and there's a high chance their child will be there, too, so completing the account creation process will be faster because the teen's phone number and smartphone are also required.
Birth Certification's Information - OCR or Manually?
Context:
The bank needs the child's correct information on the birth certificate to create an account. Therefore, entering information manually will be more accurate than relying on computers. But who will take on that responsibility?
Iteration:
Currently, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is not yet applicable on birth certificates. That's why I initially chose to make parents enter information manually.
The problem is, it takes lots of steps. Furthermore, after that, parents are still required to provide a photo of the birth certificate, which already contains all the information they previously input.
→ The final decision only requires user to input child's full name (for temporary child's account name while the document is being verified). I called this new process 'OCR Flow' because from the view of user, it's like the way banks allow users (over 18 years old) to upload photos of their ID card instead of enter information manually when they open a bank account online.
But behind the scene operation, we actually don't use OCR; instead, bank staff will manually enter information from the Birth Certificate.
Of course, this decision will cost effort for the bank, but if users have to input information themselves, there will be too many steps, and users might drop half-way.
Invalid Document
Context:
We allow users to use TechX while the Birth Certificate is being verified. Therefore, when the profile is determined to be invalid, we need actions for both sides - teen and parents.
Mechanics:
If the document is not valid,
Disable TechX in Techcombank app and child’s account
Send SMS Warning notification with message:
· Parents: ”Techcombank suspended the TechX service and disabled your child's account due to invalid registration document. Please update the document. Time limit: 30 days from notice”
· Teen: “Your account has been temporarily disabled because we couldn't validate your document. You only need to wait a bit or just remind your parents to update your document within the next 30 days, and you'll be back to using TechX in no time!”
Show notification at Home screen
Trigger warning modal
· At Login screen & “Accounts & Cards” screen when user taps TechX tab
If user chooses Update now, proceed to Take Birth certificate photo screen
Remove "Upload from Gallery" option
Keep disabling TechX in both child and parents’ app and auto-reactivate if the document is confirmed valid
If the document is confirmed valid,
Send push & app notification with message: “Document verification of your child has been successful. You can continue to use TechX services.”
If the parents don’t re-update the document after 30 days from notice
Delete TechX teen’s account
Delete TechX tab in parents Techcombank app
Transfer the teen’s account balance back to the account that parents had used to connected
· Send app notification with message: “We have discontinued our TechX service as we did not receive an updated and valid document for your child within the required timeframe. The total your child's account balance will be transferred back to the account you connected before.”
Wrap-up (but not actually)
As we've mentioned the two main features, Saving and Investing but in the case study, we've only covered half of the Saving feature on the parents' app, and we haven't tackled the Investing part yet. We are still in the process of researching and designing this feature.
This case study has flaws, requires improvement and is still under construction. But we hope that what we've done so far is practical and informative enough to serve as a useful finding for further development or application for this kind of product in the future.
Thank you
For staying till here.
I hope you find this case study helpful and if you have any questions, feedbacks on this case study or just want to say hello, please feel free to send me a message!
