CIMB Apply App is a customer-facing onboarding app for NTB (new-to-bank). CIMB Apply by CIMB Bank Berhad is one of the first banks in Malaysia to have EKYC implemented in the onboarding journey making it fully online end-to-end. Customers are able to open up a CASA account from the flick of their fingers at their own comfort at home.
Pilot app was released in March 2021 to selective number of audiences. CIMB Apply App went live to the masses in June 2021. The mobile based app caters both iOS and Android mobile devices.
Timeline:
Nov 2019 – Jun 2021
Involvement:
UI Design, Prototyping, User Research, Moderated User Interviews, Hybrid App Framework (Web & Mobile), Android Playstore & iOS App Store Deployment, Motion Graphic, Animation
Goal:
To allow new-to-bank customers to be able to open up a CASA (current account, savings account) account from the flick of their fingers at their own comfort at home.
Achievements:
+60% reduction in in-branch wait time
-40% decrease in service time.
Landing Page:
News Coverage:
The Asian Banker International Excellence in Retail Financial Services Awards 2019
Online Article
Introduction
Banking has been a part of our lives. Digitisation changes the world of banking, albeit slowly. We can notice a few prefer to walk up to the teller, while the rest; millennials especially, prefers the mobility and convenience from the flick of fingers. But value of currency is still irreplaceable by the most precious currency there is.
Time.
From our findings; on average, a typical CIMB bank branch easily takes up 35% of overall daily activities just for account opening. On average, a branch has 1,000 visitors in a day. That’s 350 of already frustrated potential customers waiting in line just to open up an account. Mind you, we haven’t taken user drop-off into account. This is where we come in. To ensure smooth online onboarding journey within the comfort of one’s own homes.
Although the team work quite well with each other within the department, the challenges were immense for the rest of the bank. Our team is the first department to transform the customers’ journey using agile methodology. This means changing the current business-as-usual processes such as providing dedicated lane in the branches, changing marketing approaches, abolish unnecessary paperwork and interlinking back-end systems within short time frame.
Design Process
Incubation + Plan
Aligned with the bank’s Customer Centricity Pillar of Forward23+ Strategy, our team has the vision of creating a multi-channel, seamless account onboarding experience for our customers. August 2019, the Retail Journey consist of Navigator, Business Analysts, Scrum Master, Product Owner, Developers and Designers formed to plan and strategize for the incubation.
The strategies and approaches were then siphoned down to the fellow Business Analysts and Product Owners. Tasks were ordered from highest to low priority with the rule being the highest value and impact to the business. With solid outlined plans in hands, user research is next in the list. Finding out what really brings value to the people; be it the employees or the customers, matters the most since they’re all users. Back-end process and front-end activities goes hand-in-hand.
Users will be given a few set of tasks. One of it was to pick and reorder the poker cards above in terms of their importance to that individual. After synthesising our findings from the research, 8 product features were shortlisted by the business team suggests better ROI for the company. They were all taken for implementation into the app.
A few of the proposed insights and feedbacks gathered from RMs were then implemented in an Invision incognito prototype (white labelled prototype to steer clear of biasness towards the bank). 40+ users with matched specified profiles were interviewed to test the prototype out over the course of 1 month.
On November 2019, the incubation of CIMB Apply App has commenced. Apply App is an online onboarding app is meant for iOS and Android devices only as it requires eKYC (electronic Know-Your-Customers) for verification purposes. Mobile devices are known for their frequent updates in security and consented use of image capture (unless rooted/jailbroken, of course the app can detect it).
Design + Develop
Being one of the pioneers in the design team, frameworks, standard of procedures need to be set in stone. This means design tools need to be synchronized for better co-creation, design language system needs to be established, version control tool needs to be substantial, and last but not least, the handoff process needs to be worked out for seamless transition to developers.
After piloting Sketch, InVision, Principle App, Zeplin and Plant for almost 6 months, we chose to work with Figma for designing and prototyping, and Zeplin for handoff to the developers. In this highly regulated industry, documentations are crucial. Whether it’s policies, frameworks or customer information; if they’re physical printouts, it should all be shredded. Otherwise, they sit in Confluence for internal usage only.
Test + Review
Handoff is one of the toughest processes to ensure seamlessness between the design and the development of the actual product. This often relates well with communication between parties especially designers and developers. I needed to work out the user story and acceptance criteria with the product owner before finalizing the details.
To further close the gap, I often take extra initiatives to ensure to document the handoff with greatest possible detail down to pixel perfect. One of the initiatives is animating the behavior or microinteraction of a particular screen such as below.
Finally, in the last stage of development, I needed to sign off the last stage in the story ticket. This involves design auditing before actually checking it Done.
Launch + Enhancements
1 year of planning, designing, developing and iterating the application all has come to an end with a big relief. Pilot branch has been running smoothly up till today as a backup, pilot team is always on alert should an issue comes up. We are fully confident that the mobile app will serve the mass in many ways especially during these pandemic times.
CIMB Apply App final end-to-end flow (as of Nov 2020)
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