Shaping the user experience of digital banking with local knowledge

Saving 💰

UK banking apps have a big focus on saving – it’s common for people to squirrel away pots of money for future purchases or bills. You’ll see these front and centre for regular review when you log in.

In Rwanda this behaviour isn’t as common. People often use loans to fund large or even smaller purchases. It’s equally common to loan money to/from friends and family on a regular basis.

Rather than seeing what’s saved, keeping on top of what you owe and being able to send money to people is a much more important experience for a Rwandan market.

Keep it secret 🤫

Cultural habits are important to stay on top of as well. While people in the UK aren’t exactly likely to share their bank balance openly, people in Rwanda tend to be even more cautious of privacy.

Concealing balance figures in the app as standard gave users more control over who might be able to see account details in their app.

It’s a simple change but one that reflects the specific needs of users whose use case is slightly different to those we’re used to for a variety of reasons.

Money transfer 💸

We learned from the BK team that typically Rwandans have multiple accounts with the same provider, often in different currencies. Paying in different currencies, as well as sending money to people in other countries, is very common.

The banking experience needed to have multiple easy ways to quickly make payments to lots of different people using a variety of different methods.

Cards and electronic payments 💳

Whilst we use physical cards all the time and are moving towards acceptance of digital payments via mobile phones, mobile payments have been adopted across many African countries for some time now.

Rwandans use debit or credit cards far less frequently and often use mobile money to buy goods and services. It’s a whole digital payment system that doesn’t happen in the UK at the same level, and something that needed to be focused on when designing the Bank of Kigali product.

Don’t take anything for granted 🧐

The ultimate goal was to understand how Rwandans typically relate to finances and money, adapting features to this while exploring new ways that could simplify their operations and transactions. Everything we learned from the BK team affected how we designed the app together.

We couldn’t take anything for granted – and you never should. A good UX designer should put aside their own lived experience when designing a product.

Whether working with someone in your home town or across the world, each audience has its nuances and particular relationship to the product; so don’t forget to keep them in mind every step of the way!