What exactly is fintech?
The Fintech (Financial Technology) industry is a sector that encompasses firms that use technology to enhance or automate financial services and processes. These companies operate in various areas such as lending, personal finance management, payments, asset management, insurance, cryptocurrency, and more. Fintech companies often leverage innovative technologies including artificial intelligence, blockchain, big data, and cloud computing to provide efficient and user-friendly financial services.
In the finance industry, UI/UX design is especially important, as financial applications need to be easy to use, intuitive, and secure.
In this article, we’ll be covering:
- The Importance of UI/UX in Fintech and its key principles
- 8 Fintech UX/UI Design Best Practices for 2024
Key Takeaways
- The world is moving towards new technologies, which means that soon “Learning” applications will not only study the habits of users but also involve them in educational games to improve their automatic, unconscious decisions about spending and saving.
- Fintech UX/UI design is not just about beauty and aesthetics, it’s about safe and frictionless user experience.
- When developing a fintech application pay attention to trust and credibility; usability and accessibility; user engagement and retention.
- 8 best UX/UI design practices in fintech for 2024:
- Clear user flow
- Centralization
- Personalization
- Gamification
- Responsiveness
- Data visualization
- Simple and clear language
- Test and iterate
- The UI/UX market designers are full of great talent, but make sure the people you hire understand finance and have experience developing financial applications.
- We advise you not to skimp on the application design because it is the first impression and experience that earns the users’ sympathy.
The Importance of UI/UX in Fintech
The financial services industry is moving forward by leaps and bounds thanks to technological advancements, but some challenges, such as high costs and increased complexity, still exist, and these can often be detrimental to small businesses.
Everyone probably uses elements of fintech daily. For example, this could be transferring money from a debit account to a checking account via iPhone, sending money to a friend via Venmo, or managing investments through an online broker.
The most talked about (and most funded) fintech startups share the same characteristic: they are designed to challenge traditional financial services companies and ultimately win them over due to their flexibility, speed, and quality. And if you’ve ever wondered why some aspect of your financial life was so frustrating (like applying for credit or withdrawing cryptocurrency) or felt like it wasn’t quite right for you, you may have faced a bad UX/UI design.
The world is moving towards new technologies, which means that soon “Learning” applications will not only study the habits of users but also involve them in educational games to improve their automatic, unconscious decisions about spending and saving.
Imagine installing a new fintech app with a nice UX/UI design — you will enjoy scrolling through the app. You can easily navigate through all the options of the application with a clear and pleasant interface, which you can use without fear or frustration.
On the other hand, imagine installing an application with an unclear and awkward fintech design. As a new user, you may find it difficult and confusing to navigate it. The lack of tutorials and clear design makes using the app frustrating and intimidating.
So which one would you be more likely to choose? The first one! Fintech UX/UI design is not just about beauty and aesthetics, it’s about safe and frictionless user experience.
That’s why we can say that UX/UI design is directly responsible for how users interact with financial applications, what kind of interaction experience they receive, which applications they prefer, and which services they recommend to their friends and family.
What should you think about when developing a fintech application?
1. Trust and Credibility
With all the scams happening around, everyone would prefer a more secure fintech app. Display your privacy policy, and use two-step verification and biometrics to improve security.
2. Usability and accessibility
The simpler the application, the happier customers will be. An app that solves people’s problems by improving accessibility and inclusivity is more likely to win in the market competition.
3. User engagement and retention
When a user enjoys using an app, they are more likely to spread the word about it. Thus, effective UX design helps attract and retain users. To be the best in the industry and stand out in the market, we recommend that you constantly monitor competitors’ updates, think about what you can add to improve the user experience, and use the following design practices.
8 Fintech Design Best Practices for 2024
1. Clear user flow
Anticipate potential confusion and provide users with clear instructions. This task is well performed by the onboarding stage: after registration, the user goes through a short tutorial and learns the main functions of the application. Well-designed guides will allow the user to navigate the process and give him a sense of control and understanding. And make sure that the user has the opportunity to return to the instruction at any time when questions arise.
Example: Banking App for Students
2. Centralization
Thanks to integrations with third-party services, fintech applications can solve a wider range of problems than conventional banking products. Such applications, especially mobile ones, are not just a tool for transferring money from one account to another. Currently, fintech covers a huge range of financial transactions for both ordinary people and professionals.
This allows users to keep detailed records of their expenses and have a complete picture of what is happening with their money. After all, isn’t that what we all want from a financial product?
Example: Wealth Management Platform. Here we connect Robo Advisor, Remote Portfolio Construction, and Monitoring Functionality.
And one more example: Centralized Platform for Trading Over-the-Counter Securities
3. Personalization
With their basic, featureless colors and penchant for obscure slang words, banking apps have always been… boring. Fintech products have come a long way from purely functional tools to full-fledged branding products.
When the product is unique, it helps a person realize the importance of quick and painless financial management. This is especially true when not only the product but also the personalities of its representatives resonate in the hearts of users.
Try to make the interface more welcoming, and less cluttered, so that users want to interact with it. Add emojis, icons, or illustrations, and make the design more airy to make it feel more human-centric. This allows for a significantly improved finance management experience.
Example: Team Extension for Building eWallet
4. Gamification
Let’s be honest, managing your finances is not a fun experience. Such tasks are anxiety-inducing and require significant mental effort. Gamification helps reduce stress and encourages “healthy” financial behavior. One of the goals of fintech products is to help users make less impulsive decisions. By receiving rewards for their actions, users become more involved and, accordingly, loyal. Managing your finances is no longer a boring, annoying routine, it turns into a series of achievements and accomplishments.
What elements can help here?
- Various challenges
- Progress indicators
- Points and virtual currency
- Badges and stickers
- Leaderboards and social interactions
- Rewards and virtual collectibles
Example: Mobile Banking App for Migrants
5. Responsiveness
Refusal of offline interaction is a logical stage in the development of the fintech industry. In an ever-faster world, we rarely have time to visit our local bank branch to approve transactions and sign papers. But this also does not exclude the fact that at different times it is convenient for us to use completely different gadgets.
The fintech application must be adaptable to various devices such as mobile devices (IOS, Android), iPads, laptops, and PCs. The design must be compatible with different screen sizes to avoid malfunctions and malfunctions.
Accordingly, develop responsive layouts at the design stage, because developers will not be able to independently take into account all the nuances during the development stage.
Example: AI-based Financial Data Management Platform
6. Data visualization
The ability to see the state of your finances in graphical form is one of the most useful features of fintech applications. This allows you to better understand the volume of expenses, income, and the relationship between them.
Data visualization has become an integral part of fintech applications, so every user expects to see it there. For example, use infographics: charts, graphs, and illustrations to break down complex information. Try to avoid technical terms and use them only when necessary.
More advanced products go even further. Using machine learning algorithms, users can access predictive visualizations that assess how their actions impact their finances over time.
Example: Automated Stock Trading Platform
7. Simple and clear language
Very often, it is incomprehensible jargon that prevents us from using fintech products effectively. When an app is filled with unfamiliar words, it discourages users, causing them to give up further attempts to track their spending.
Clear text helps people make smarter financial decisions without wasting time learning technical terminology. However, this does not mean that we need to completely abandon financial terms.
You’ll find that words like overdraft, rollover, or LTV calculator don’t have simpler forms. A great way to help your users navigate this terminology is to create a special glossary that will contain the necessary definitions or show the terminology when they click on the info icon. Clarity is the key.
Example: White-Label Mobile Banking App
8. Test and iterate
The final step of any UX design process is testing and iterating your product with real users. This also includes measuring its performance, usability, and satisfaction: A/B testing, beta testing, usability testing, and user feedback are good options to evaluate your product and identify its strengths and weaknesses. Making mistakes is not scary, the main thing is to notice and correct mistakes in time in order not to lose customers. Initially, it is better to release a product with a minimum set of functions, but that will work perfectly than to try to clumsily combine everything at once and scare off users.
That’s how we in Itexus create effective Fintech solutions.
Conclusions
If you find the right team and UI/UX developer, none of this should be a problem. Communicate your goals, think about what problems your service or app solves, and how to differentiate you in the market. The UI/UX market is full of great talent, but make sure the people you hire understand finance and have experience developing financial applications.
We advise you not to skimp on the application design because it is the first impression and experience that earns users’ sympathy. In the future, in any case, it will be much more efficient for you to continue developing based on an already created design system and wireframes, rather than starting all over again with a bad client’s reputation and unjustified expectations.