Designing for Trust in a Digital World

In the decade since the 2008 financial crisis, corruption and massive data breaches at leading institutions have often made headline news. With consumers well aware of these front-page scandals, it’s no surprise why many are continuing to explore some of the many emerging, tech-enabled alternatives to banking- and investing-as-usual in the marketplace. As FinTech startups grow and competition continues to come from unlikely and disruptive places, the need to establish consumer trust In the financial services industry has never been more critical.

At frog, we believe creating trust in a digital world requires designing financial products and services with a deep focus on designing trustworthy customer experiences. With this in mind, we’ve built what we call the trust-building framework built on four core pillars: competency, reliability, empathy and customer orientation. Here’s a look at three case studies that show how frog’s human-centered approach has helped these businesses change their outlook, launch new products and craft new, engaging experiences that resonate with customers in a digital financial world

BNY Mellon: Relaunching a Legacy

As the longest-standing financial institution in the US, BNY Mellon has seen its share of industry shifts. To stay ahead of emerging digital competition, they first came to frog for help relaunching its brand as a digital-first company. Seeing the value of digital communication, frog and BNY Mellon partnered to use their channels with more intention, and to design and operate platforms to combine expert guidance with clear paths to relevant financial products and services. More than five years later, the initial engagement has evolved into a new brand strategy, design language system and a series of sleek and user-friendly mobile- and digital-first solutions that fit comfortably within their customers’ lives.

Charlie: Expertise Meets Emotion

Charlie is a startup that aims to change how people understand their own financial behavior. As a friendly chatbot service delivering personalized guidance to individual customers, Charlie uses artificial intelligence such as machine learning and natural language processing to text with customers in a natural and intuitive manner. The result is an app that is able to track and recommend financial guidance in a way that is mindful of how consumers actually like to communicate. To keep consumer trust front of mind throughout, the team aligned on creating a ‘relationship model framework’ that ensures the Charlie persona would be welcome into their customers’ lives. The resulting ‘prodigy penguin’ character is empathetic and expressive, and a trusted guide to personal financial matters.

Intesa: Digital Meets Brick-and-Mortar

Digital shifts are not just changing the online financial environment. Even within commercial properties like brick-and-mortar banks and financial institutions, companies need to understand and design for how their customers access services in their everyday lives. With this in mind, frog partnered with the Italian bank Intesa to completely redesign their branches around their clients. Through deep design research and rapid prototyping, the frog team helped Intesa launch digital tools that improve wayfinding in-store and help their clients connect with the right products and services for them.