Float by Citi
Peer-to-peer Lending App
The Float by Citi app was an internal project launched at Citibank through the D10X fast starts initiative. This initiative was competition based and gave product owners throughout fintech the ability to submit ideas that they felt would have the biggest consumer impact and most success for Citi. Float was the only project selected out of the hundreds of submissions to move forward with development.
Float App
The Challenge
To develop a consumer centric mobile platform that would allow seamless peer-to-peer lending between families and friends. The platform would need to be intuitive and easier for consumers to frequently make multiple financial transactions over the course of the loan period. The app would need to be informative allowing consumers to know when the loan repayments were due and it would also need to keep track of all past payments. It would also need to be fun to use complete with animations every time a loan repayment was made and in certain instances, where an alert was necessary to communicate a call to action.
Demographics
Persona 1
Name: Stephen
Age: 33
Occupation: Freelance Artist
Profile: Steven is a freelance artist who enjoys oil painting. His work has been featured in several different installations throughout his city and he’s finally gaining some notoriety. In order to make ends meet Steven share’s a 3 bedroom flat with 2 other roommates. Steven believes he will finally begin to make a steady income in the next few months once he began selling his work through larger galleries and online. As a freelancer Steven’s budget can fluctuate significantly which can drastically affect how much he has in his budget for the month. His sister said she is willing to float him some money over the next couple months but only if he promises to repay her in full. She also wants the ability to add a small interest rate on the original loan amount that she lends to Steven. Steven he is fine with accepting a loan from his sister but he may need to change the terms of the loan within the repayment period as his finances change. He will need an app that gives him the ability to update the terms and conditions of the agreement with his sister pending her approval. He also wants the ability to make smaller bi-weekly payments since the smaller amounts will be easier for him to absorb.
Persona 2
Name: Vanessa
Age: 24
Occupation: Freelance Artist
Profile: Vanessa is a recent college graduate who just moved out of her parents home into her own apartment. While in college Vanessa accumulated a considerable amount of student loan debt and now has the added expense of an apartment and car payment. Since being out on her own she is finding it challenging being able to juggle all of her monthly expenses while trying to maintain a descent lifestyle and social life. Her parents are unwilling to lend her any additional money until she becomes more financially savvy. For Vanessa she needs a way of demonstrating that she is becoming more financially mature. She will need an app to allow her to create a loan with her parents that will document the dollar amount, terms and conditions, and repayment frequency. She will also need a way of tracking her past payments and received alerts when her payment is almost due to keep her on track and properly budgeted for the month
Competitive Analysis
Throughout the research and discovery phase of the project I benchmarked a few apps that allow consumers to make peer-to-peer financial transactions. From my findings I discovered that many of the apps including Venmo and Cash App were easy to use and allowed consumers the ability to make quick one time payments to anyone within their social circle. However one of things that these apps lacked was the ability to originate a peer-to-peer loan on their platform. Furthermore, the apps lacked the accountability component that we were striving for with the Float project.
My research has shown that only 32% of the loans created between family and friends are paid in full. A lot of these loans are based upon the “honor system” with a verbal agreement and are not accompanied by any iron clad agreement between the lender and borrower. I set out to change this low repayment percentage by offering consumers an app they could use to create a loan agreement, track payments and become more financially responsible and accountable.
Initial Wireframes
To ensure I was designing in the construct of the product owner’s goals I put together a set of extensive wireframes and divided them according to journey to make it easier for me to convey my message and to confirm there was parity between my ideas and the product owner’s expectations. I learned a lot throughout this phase the biggest being how to address the communication between the borrower and lender through the app. This enabled me to think outside of the box to care for scenarios I wouldn’t have otherwise considered.
Final Comps
Throughout this phase of the project I took the learnings from our wireframes and begin designing out the app in high fidelity. This is where I looked for true pixel for pixel perfection on each screen to ensure the most consistent user experience. To curtail some of the anxiety around borrowing money and to gamify the app a bit I added some illustrations to create a more engaging experience. I will admit I enjoyed creating all of the bird illustrations for this app.
Loan Setup Flow
Delete A Payment Flow
Notifications Screens
