Key insights from a series of user tests on a No-Code prototype for digital lending
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From a momo-seller in Varanasi to a vegetable vendor in Nagpur, more than half of India's population still relies on unofficial sources like money-lenders for their lending needs. But as the country rapidly digitalises, digital lending can become the new norm - solving for the problems of easy accessibility, simple process, and rapid loan dispersals.
We built a digital lending app and took it to users in Banaras to know if it is something they can trust and use.
The user tests gave us some predictable outcomes, like users loving the anytime-anywhere flexibility of a loan app. But it also gave us some surprising insights, like the preference for 'Hinglish' instead of pure Hindi or English. Note user reactions to the app and the top findings,
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Parallel together with TTC Labs, CIIE.co, DICE and D91 Labs took part in a year-long initiative to understand how to build a digital culture of trust among the Bharat audience especially around Digital Financial Services.
After months of research, user surveys and expert suggestions, Parallel hosted a Design Jam that brought together fintech experts, designers, and business managers. The aim was to co-create a product provocation around digital lending for users from low and middle income backgrounds.
During the final design showcase where different prototypes were shared, experts like Pawan Bakshi, India Lead, Financial Services for the Poor at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Sanjay Jain, Chief Innovation Officer at CIIE, gave their valuable feedback. They also suggested testing these ideas with real users.
Read all the ideas from the Design Jam
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CredNow was a fictional digital lending app that offered pre-approved loans based on the user's personal details, professional details, and prior credit history. Its main USP was quick turnaround time and convenient loan options.
We built upon the ideas from the Design Jam and polished them further to create a lending app centred around six key ideas that were tested with the users:
Using audio clues to aid with text when words and phrases are difficult or non-legible
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Using Hindi to increase explainability of difficult financial phrases
Giving clear, step-by-step information to make user feel at ease with lending process
Giving information with minimal data input and freedom to share or delete data
Providing alternate options and ways to improve credit score to empathise and build trust
Giving users the ability to remove private and personal information from the app
100% of the users even if knowing English, wanted the app to be in Hindi because English words were difficult to understand. Surprisingly, they still preferred English words like 'Eligibility' over Hindi 'Paatrata'.
60% of the users could easily discriminate between personal and non-personal data and were very cautious while sharing sensitive information like Aadhaar and PAN.
All users loved the idea of getting a loan from the comfort of their homes but they did not like the processing period wait of 3 days and wanted it instantly.
On one hand everyone loved the comfort of taking loan from a digital app but had massive mistrust with unknown apps preferring digital lending options from their banks.
Typically a brand loses customers the moment a loan is rejected, but while trying to show rejection with empathy, respect and explainability, we saw 80% of the users trusting the app even more.
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