Banking App for Students
A banking application that provides students with unique credit, debit, and payment tools, helps to build credit score, and instills financial literacy and money management habits through engaging educational content.
About the client
The most promising startups emerge when their founders have experienced the problem they are trying to solve. Such is the case with this case study.
Our client is an American startup with a multicultural team scattered all over the world. All of these people are united by a passion for innovation, an interest in fintech, and a desire to make the world a better place by developing technological solutions that make everyday life easier.
In addition, the founders are fellow alumni who attended Georgia State University. As students, the founders struggled to pay their debts because they lacked money management tools and skills – that’s how the idea was born.
Project background
The startup that contacted us had already launched several successful financial products. While working on these products and launching them, our client revealed the user segment whose needs were not fully covered by the existing solutions. The team came up with the idea of developing a banking product for this particular segment.
Since all the client had was the idea and commitment to bring it to life, we offered to start with the discovery phase to test their hypotheses, assess the risks, and estimate the cost of the project. The discovery outcomes and findings led the team to proceed to the development phase.
Engagement model
Time & Materials
Effort and Duration
11 months
Solution
iOS and Android apps
Project Team
1 Business Analyst, 1 UI/UX Designer, 1 Project Manager, 1 Tech Lead, 2 iOS Developers, 2 Android Developers, 2 Backend Developers, 1 QA Engineer
Tech stack / Platforms
Target audience
The solution is targeted at American and European students enrolled in a college, university, or vocational school and looking for additional sources of financing.
Project challenges
The specifics of the client’s team proved to be something of a challenge. First, there were quite a few people from the client side involved in the project which often caused the lack of a unified product vision for the team. And second, sometimes it was really challenging to gather a lot of people for an online meeting, considering the different time zones of the people from the client team.
Solution overview
The Itexus team developed two native applications for iOS and Android platforms. The main idea of the app is to equip students with the right loans and lending tools to enable them to start building credit history during their formal educational years. The solution includes loans, lending, and payments in a single portal and offers card issuance, money cashback, personal and student loans, tracking of cash balance, payment, and credit score services. But there is also something that makes the app advantageously differ from similar solutions – it is the educative function implemented as finances educational videos.
Onboarding
This module allows users to register in the app, sign in, sign out, reset the password and re-enter the app. Unregistered users have access to introduction information about the app.
Home page
On the home page, relevant information related to users’ financial products is displayed – their credit cards, credit score, card balance, etc. From the home page, users can navigate to the credit card application screen or switch to videos that help to develop financial literacy.
Credit card application
In this module, users apply for credit cards and pass the KYC procedure.
Credit card management
Here users can view credit card balance, credit card details, activate or freeze credit cards, view transactions history, dispute a transaction, add a credit card to a digital wallet or get and download credit card statements.
Tax management
To facilitate tax documentation management for users, we implemented the feature that allows them to view and download tax documents and have easy access to them regardless of the app or internet connection availability.
Notifications
Users can receive push notifications about transactions, advertising materials, new videos, etc. Users can also adjust the settings and choose events they want to be notified about.
Credit score management
In this block, users can assess their credit score information, calculate it, and see educational information about credit scores.
Payments
To enable users to make purchases and set auto payments, we integrated the app with a payment provider. Linked bank options are also available in this module.
Settings
In this module, users can manage personal information, edit their profiles, and set or change security parameters.
Customer support
To provide the best possible experience to users, we enabled different options of getting support – phone calls, email, and chat. There is also an FAQ containing detailed answers to the majority of the questions.
Points management
In the app, users can earn special points by watching educational videos, making purchases, etc. These points are credited to the user’s account and can be converted into money.
Project approach
We started with the discovery phase and held a series of workshops where we designed the user flow, defined the technical solution architecture, prioritized the features, and defined the scope and detailed requirements for the first sprints.
Then we moved on to the development phase. For project implementation, we chose agile methodology with frequent deliveries, full transparency, and close collaboration. Every two weeks, we held demonstration sessions with our client to deliver results and get instant feedback so we could make timely adjustments to the functionality. To make the best use of time, the business analyst had been writing the requirements and the UI /UX specialist had been creating designs for the subsequent iterations in parallel with the development process.
Third-party integrations
- Galileo is a payment processing platform and banking APIs that allows to quickly create sophisticated payment card programs. It is used to issue virtual and physical credit/debit cards, process payments, etc.
- Experian offers a wide range of services for verification of individuals and companies, the whole circle of KYC and KYB procedures, AML compliance, scoring module, etc. It is used to capture user data and obtain customer scoring to make better decisions on loan granting.
- YouTube is an online video sharing and social media platform that allows to publish educational videos so that the customers (users of the app) can watch them and improve their financial literacy.
- Jumio‘s identity verification, eKYC, and AML solutions fight fraud and other financial crimes, ensure compliance, and onboard good customers to apps faster. We use them to monitor our customers’ transactions to prevent fraud and comply with AML regulations.
- SendGrid (Twilio) is a cloud-based email delivery platform used to distribute emails to customers (users of the app).
- HubSpot is a CRM software that provides a full range of marketing, sales, and customer service functions to organise and engage all customers (users of the app).
Results
The first version of the MVP was delivered on budget & on schedule and in full compliance with the client’s expectations and is now live. The client is gathering feedback from the first users and adjusting the marketing strategy according to insights received. The Itexus team is working on the advanced version of the application.
Need expert assistance in fintech app development? Let’s discuss your ideas and find out how Itexus can help you take them further.
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