Wise Business Banking
Case Study
The process behind creating the Wise mobile app
Project Intro
In January of 2019 I joined two of my previous co-workers as a founding team member of Wise; a digital bank built specifically for small businesses. It combines banking and payments into a single experience that allows the business owner to earn 2% APY on their checking account while being able to make and accept instant payments. Our goal at Wise is to optimize cash-flow and help small businesses grow.
Important:
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted confidential information in this case study. All information is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of Wise.
My Role
As the Product Design Lead, I currently lead the efforts in all design related areas. My role starts with writing product specs and ends with app store screenshot delivery.
Main Tasks
- Market Research
- Customer Insights
- User Interface & Experience
- Product Management
My Design & Product Tool Kit
Sketch
Whimsical
Flinto
Abstract
Adobe AE
Adobe AI
Adobe PS
Jira
Notion
Understanding Small Businesses
In order to successfully provide a banking experience small business owners would enjoy, we set out to interview 20 business owners across multiple different industries. Arjun, our CEO, even spent a few days in the back offices of small businesses from friends and family.
We interviewed restaurants, freelancers, online retailers, motel owners and many more. Our goal was to deeply understand their banking needs and uncover points of friction in their day-to-day operations.
Once we had finished our initial research two things jumped out to us:
- The similarity between different verticals in the SMB space when it came to banking and payments.
- How many different applications were being used to manage cash-flow related tasks.
Based on these findings, we figured that we could have a successful first version of our product by "simply" solving the problem of a disjointed banking and payments experience.
Understanding the Business Owner
While this may seem very similar to understanding the business itself, it was also very important for me to further understand some of the key characteristics of small business owners. The research for this was conducted in the same interviews as we used to understand the business itself. I used the findings of this research to guide me in the visual and interaction design and decision making process.
Some of the most important characteristics I gathered in these interviews are listed to the right.
Based on the findings, I knew that Wise would have to be very simple and easy to use. We also had to make a great impression on our customers. And most importantly, we had to show how to leverage Wise to run their business more effectively.
Designing the Mobile App
This was a unique challenge to face for me and the rest of the company. Banking and payment apps have been around for a while and are relatively well understood by their users. Combining the two into one seamless experience involved a lot of planning, and testing to make sure features were easily accessible, and clearly labeled.
The Information Architecture
To understand the relationship between different features and segments of the app, I set up an information architecture outline. This allowed me to keep the bigger picture in mind and focus on organizing features and information in a way that made sense to the user. My goal was an intuitive layout and experience.
Overview
The Overview section is meant to provide a quick overview of everything going on with the business' bank account and payments. It also offers shortcuts for the most used actions, such as sending invoices, making payments, or transferring funds.
Note:
This version of the Overview screen was not yet shipped due to the complexity of the account insights. The version currently available is a lot simpler and has a list view for recent activity.
Transactions
The transaction list is meant to provide a detailed overview of all activity happening on the bank account. It allows users to search, filter, and export all information for accounting purposes.
Contacts
One of the most important parts of any business is managing the relationships with your customers and contractors. Many of the business owners we interviewed were referring back to old emails or a third party CRM software to reference contact and payment information.
To solve this, we added a lightweight CRM component to Wise that allows our customers to save business contacts for easy payments or invoicing. This also allows our them to track and manage any pending payments.
Cards
This is where business owners can easily see all of their active debit cards. It gives them the ability to activate or block any card, as well as order new cards if necessary. It was also meant to eventually serve as a place where customers can apply for credit cards, once they are offered by Wise.
Making Instant Payments
One of the most important tasks for business owners was the ability to make payments quickly, and stress free. Because of this, we introduced the ability to send instant payments to any contact. The recipient simply has to enter their Visa debit card information, and funds will be available in their account instantly.
To keep all of our bases covered, we also included the option to send a Bank Transfer or Mail a Check. This way a business owner has complete control over how they pay their contractors and vendors.
Collecting Card Payments
We wanted business on our platform to experience the gratification of getting paid for their work instantly. In most cases they had to wait 24 - 48 hours for the money they earned to be deposited in their checking account. With Wise, the funds are available instantly upon the transaction being completed.
Sending Invoices
Lastly, many of the small businesses we talked to had a need for invoicing their customers. This has led many of them to use three or four different tools to run their business. We wanted to include a light-weight invoicing solution in our mobile app to help the business owners optimize their operations.
Validation
Currently, Wise is growing at a staggering rate and is receiving more than 50 applications from business owners every day. This indicates that we were able to find a great Product / Market Fit. However, there are still many product gaps that need to be filled before Wise can reach its full potential and grow into the best banking and payments product for Small Businesses out there.
Even though the product and metrics indicate great success, there is still a lot of potential for growth. It should be iterated on by considering usability tests, A/B tests, and other in-depth surveys with the user to improve on the initial version.
Shoutouts
Looking over my time at Wise so far, it is incredible what we have been able to achieve in such a short period of time. We took an idea to a full fledged product and gained over 500 customers in only a year. This would not have been possible without the extreme dedication of our senior leadership, developers, and engineers. I want to thank everyone on the team for their sleepless nights that brought our vision to life and into the hands of our customers. This was truly a team effort, and would have been impossible to achieve with anyone else.
