Design Thinking as a strategy for financial technology in Africa
Digital technology is changing society. Every aspect of our lives seems affected by its outcome, both personal and business alike. The Financial Industry (FSI) is not exempt from the developments, as we see waves of digital technology moving in multiple forms.
Particularly in Africa, innovation is allowing many Africans to climb up the financial technology value chain. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sub-Saharan Africa is the only region in the world where close to 10% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in transactions occur through mobile money, this is a common Financial Technology in Africa.
However, as Financial Technology evolves, many financial institutions have failed to bridge the gap between the design of their products and their customers’ daily lifestyle. Also, products churned out by companies are not satisfying their customers’ actual needs.
This is common in countries like Africa, where customers in rural areas lack physical contact with financial institutions; this problem makes building an application that is designed for the banked and unbanked complex. An excellent way to solve this, is to apply the strategy of “Design Thinking”.
Design Thinking can be defined as a process for creative problem solving. Design thinking has a human-centered core, which encourages organisations to put a streamlined focus on the consumers they are creating the product. Through this process, the organisation can gather a mix of;
· What is desirable from a human point of view
· What is technologically feasible and
· What is economically viable.
As a result, customers are more satisfied with a product or service. This poses the question “How do we use Design Thinking as a Business Strategy for Financial Technology Products?”.
Here are five steps in applying Digital Thinking as a Strategy for Financial Technology Products:
- Empathise — Gain an empathetic understanding of the problems faced by financial technology customers in Africa. This will involve observing, engaging and empathising with end-users to understand pain points and motivations from both the banked and unbanked. This will mean avoiding assumptions and immersing yourself to the lifestyle of the end-user to gaining real insights.
- Define — This stage defines and clarifies the problems identified at the empathise stage. At this stage, you analyst, synthesise and explain your observations from possible end-users. Formulating a clear problem statement in a human-centred manner sets the right foundation for building the financial technology product. Based on the report gained through the empathetic stage, identify elements of the products such as properties and functionalities that will solve the problem statement.
- Ideate — After defining the user’s needs, the next stage is for the team to sit back and “think outside the box” for solutions to the problem statement identified. The team will look for alternative ways to view the problem.
- Prototype — This is an experimental stage of the process. The aim is to identify the best solution for each of the problems outlined in the first three stages. The team will produce several scaled-down versions of the product to investigate the solutions suggested. All the answers are implemented at this stage.
- Evaluate — This is the final stage where the financial technology product is tested in the market. This could be a static prototype or a functional product with minimal features. This will serve as a great tester in the market. This stage is an iterative process, where feedback is used to refine the product or generate more problem statements for future products.
Considering this, it is possible to design financial technology products in Africa specific to the lifestyle of both the banked and the unbanked.
This would bring a paradigm shift in the Financial Services Industry, where both banked and unbanked users will move towards using more digital platforms to carry out transactions than the traditional ones.
The future of financial technology is now.
To apply this strategy to your design teams, contact pcl. for more information.
