A platform for
underbanked women.
&Sister
Company: Interactivism
Discipline: User Research, User Experience (UX), User Interface (UI)
Duration: Jun ‘21 - Aug ‘21
Tools: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop
Methods: Ethnographic Interviews, Affinity Map, Prioritization Matrix, Personas, Competitor Analysis, Critical User Journeys, Prototyping
My Role:
Conducted 40 user interviews with immigrants in French and English
Extracted key insights
Led and organized affinity map
Developed deep and textured personas
Conducted competitor analysis
Designed high-fidelity prototypes
“Every month, along with eleven other women from her church choir, Leah put $200 in the geh pot. Each month, the pot rotated among them. Last month had finally been her turn. Leah had put the entire $2400 in the envelope for her daughter.”
— Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko
Background
&Sister aims to empower low-income women to break the cycle of poverty.
We accomplish this mission through Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCA’s), which are informal, trust-based financial groups. Participants will gather and pool together money, with one person each time going home with the total sum of money. This rotates until everyone has received the funds. They provide peer-to-peer loans and micro-insurance that are interest-free and rely on trust, financial inclusion, and community-based design.
With COVID came a digital revolution, thus widening the gap between the haves and haves-not.
Pair this with low credit scores, predatory lending practices, and a lack of trust in financial institutions, people are struggling now more than ever to help themselves out of poverty. Women are more susceptible to financial exclusion as they face more socio-cultural pressure to support their families and home, face a significant gender wage gap, and are more likely to work in the informal economy making it harder for them to meet the minimum income requirements for bank accounts or loans.
Purpose
Challenge: How might we provide low-income women with a digital platform to save money and access interest-free loans and financial education?
Desk Research
ROSCA’s go by different names all around the world, such as stokvels, tandas, chit funds, and susus to name a few.
I studied the unique features of savings clubs from Bangladesh, South Korea, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines, India, the Middle East, and West Africa. Below are some key differences highlighted in the different cultural models.
Gye (Korea): Members can pay extra to receive the pot first, while there’s a bonus for receiving it last.
Tontine / Esusu (West Africa): Uses an app built with credit score, health insurance, and small loans. Disadvantages include inflexible regulation, outdated bank laws, and lack of funds.
Stokvels (South Africa): Groups are formed based on specific needs, i.e., property investment or school fees. They include a stokvel constitution, which acts as an agreement among members.
Tandas (Mexico): Used by 1/3 of the population and largely run by women. They are held together by a strong social glue since members are relatives and friends.
I spoke with immigrant populations far and near.
I conducted 40 interviews in Paris and Los Angeles in French and Spanish, respectively, to understand motivations and pain points.
Understanding that discussing finances with a stranger may be a sensitive topic, I approached these conversations by clearly explaining the purpose of my interviews and terms of confidentiality, asking questions from a gentle and respectful stance.
User Research
Affinity Map
After collecting data, I used an affinity map to organize the wide range of insights and motivations from my interviewees.
Click on the preview to see the differences across saving clubs.
Key Insights
I recognized that trust stood out as the most crucial component that held the group together.
It accounted for the lack of formal regulation within saving clubs and contributed to a low default rate, below 0.05%.
- High trust, ensures accountability and minimizes defaulting
- Smaller groups, ideally 8-15 people to build trust and easier decision-making
- Special purpose groups, builds a supportive community
- Auctioning order, helps members who are in need of immediate monetary relief
- Same income bracket, lowers default rates
- Immigrant communities, popular because of low trust in financial institutions
Below you will find four personas that I created to highlight different motivations for joining a saving club.
These reasons include building a credit score, accessing large sums of money, and building financial literacy.
Personas
Product Requirements
I then created a prioritization matrix that identified key features for our product that are realistic within the scope of the company’s resources.
Orange highlights crucial features that meets user’s pain points.
Low-Fidelity Prototypes
Final Wireframes
Future Projections
With pilot testing already underway, we are working on creating an MVP to organize and build trust. This foundation will allow us to hook into the financial market by partnering with banks for SME loans, debit/credit cards, and credit monitoring. Future projections include expanding to South Africa, Latin America, and the Philippines, and ultimately creating our own digital currency: an &Sister coin.
Reflection
&Sister introduced me to the importance of conducting thorough user research when tackling a new problem. Einstein said if he had an hour to solve a problem, he would spend the first 55 minutes understanding the problem.
By talking to people around the world and pulling tips from Mike Kuniavsky’s practitioner’s guide to “Observing the User Experience”, I realized that understanding users’ motivations is the most important part of any product development cycle.
“A good product that doesn’t satisfy the needs, fulfill the desires, or respect the abilities of its audience is not a good product, no matter how good the code or the visual design.” - Kuniavsky
Approaching conversations with sensitivity and emphasizing trust-building, I was able to build a solid foundation on which I could extract valuable insights and generate a host of ideas.
This connects to my career in Social Work by ensuring I do my due diligence in assessing clients and community needs in a culturally-competent manner that empowers those I support. Analyzing the data in an efficient way to provides a holistic view was crucial to lay the foundation of this product. It was fascinating to delve into the world of fintech to empower and give low-income women the tools to break the cycle of poverty, and envision the creation of a new digital currency that is tied to the value of the female economy.