The rise of FinTech startups in Indonesia

The booming economy in Indonesia has paved a clear path to leverage FinTech startups. With that, FinTech in Indonesia has become one of the most promising industries.

• With easy access to technology, smartphones, and cheaper data plans, consumers are able to access internet services at any time and anywhere.
• This gives rise to mobile penetration which is continuously increasing in the growing middle class of Indonesia.
• Services like GoPay, Ovo, Dana, and LinkAja, leverage this by making it easy for customers to do online transactions, increasing the number of cashless payments.
• Most of these FinTech startups are also lowering their fees in order to reach a bigger user base.
• Along with that, government institutions are enabling and supporting technology companies; which is quickly making users switch to online systems rather than offline ones.

All of this combined has given rise to the number of FinTech companies in various sectors like payments, lending, investments, credit scoring and more.

In the last 3 years, Flolab has worked with 6 such FinTech startups, and there are a few things that we’ve picked up along the way while designing the ‘tech’ in the FinTech industry.

When designing a FinTech product, the one thing to keep in mind is: how is your product going to help the user compared to a similar offline service? Primarily, you want to make your product really simple and easy to use. If the user has to work harder to understand really complex financial information, they’re probably better off going to an agent to do the work for them. Here’s how you can go about designing a FinTech app that’s user-friendly:

1. Educating the User

Even though lending, financial planning, investments, budgeting have been around even before technology companies came into the picture, a lot of people in Indonesia, especially millennials (a primary target user group for a lot of startups) are just about getting familiar with the idea of managing their finances. Therefore, it becomes important to teach a few basics of financial planning, investment, lending, etc. and how these FinTech products work.

Teach the users how to use the app/website: There are some users for whom these apps are probably the first touchpoint on their first brand new smartphone. Such users need to be educated on how to simply navigate around the product.

Simplify complex information: Most FinTech products have some really complex data. It becomes important to simplify this information in order for a layman to make sense out of it.

How will the user benefit with your app: Let the user know how your app is going to help them manage their finances, let your value proposition be available easily on your product.

Explain industry jargon: Finance products always come with a lot of terminologies that are mostly understood by financial institutions and people who work in the finance industry day-to-day. For FinTech products that are built for the masses, however, it’s important to use terms that a layman could understand or learn. If you must use a term that’s a bit more technical, it’s always good to assume the user doesn’t know what it means and have an explanation for it.

2. Set Goals for the user

Transactional products aren’t enough, maximize on the user’s end-to-end experience: Financial goals help the user have a clear endpoint for a task they’re set out to achieve using your product. It could be a savings plan if it’s an investment product, or a budget planning feature if it’s an expense driven app. Offer features that will give the user a feeling of accomplishment.

3. Visual design

Choose colors that help build trust & security: When you’re dealing with a user’s finances, you need to be able to get the user to trust your product and feel secure while doing any transactions. Using colors like blue and green, which are usually associated with financial institutions, help give users a sense of familiarity and security within your platform. Limit the use of too many colors in one place, gradients or anything too loud, as that would make the platform look a bit too playful.

Have user-friendly visuals: Balance the product with delightful UI elements, so that the tone of the product is more ‘friendly’ rather than ‘intimidating’ because of all the overwhelming financial content. Using icons and illustrations that aren’t too loud, but instead blend easily with the rest of the UI, would keep the content of the product in focus.

Use fonts that work well with numbers: Finance products use a lot of numbers, you want to make sure that these numbers look as good the alphabets. Choose a font that also makes currency symbols and special characters available as well.

4. Making complex information, simple

Understand the services you’re providing to the user: Have a clear and fair understanding of each features you design for. You can only simplify something once you have deep knowledge of it yourself.

Put yourself in the user’s shoes: Be a user of the service yourself and notice how easy or difficult it is to grasp a piece of information — then simplify it so that it’s easily understandable for most users.

Show proof before the user puts their money down: Let the user clearly see the benefit of your service before they have actually spent their money.

Make it low cost and as easy as possible for the user to make their first transaction: Let the user know that they don’t need to make big leaps just because they’re dealing with ‘finances’. Allow the user to take baby steps so that they can give your product a try. The user would come back as soon as they see how easy it was for them to make that first transaction.

5. Capturing excessive amounts of data

Break down the data you need from the user: FinTech apps in Indonesia usually need a lot of data from the user under the KYC (Know Your Customer) feature. Breaking this down in bite-sized pieces would make it easier for the user to provide you with that information as opposed to a long form that the user needs to fill in all at once.

Letting the user know earlier in the process about the documents that would be required also helps speed up the process for the user by giving them a heads up before they actually dive into the form.

Don’t make the user enter information repeatedly: If a user is already logged into your product, it’s easy to store the information the user provides. If the user has already provided a set of information once, avoid asking for it again, it will save a lot of time for the user and allow him to skip additional steps in the process. If absolutely necessary, show the user the info you’ve already captured and simply ask them to confirm it.

6. Transparency

Keep the user informed with updates post-purchase: After a user has already completed a transaction, notify the user about the status so it’s easy for them to track. Allow the user to track the growth or the status of the financial product they have purchased within your platform if that’s possible.

Historical data should be easy to access: When dealing with finances, a user should get a monthly or yearly summary of where they have spent, the status of the product, the growth as well as the current value of the product.

Hidden costs should be shown upfront: Admin fees, convenience fees, bank charges, and any other such costs should be shown while the user is making the purchase decision, not only on the payment confirmation page (which usually leads to drop-offs)

Important terms and conditions should be visible upfront: Adding disclaimers before the user takes the decision to purchase makes the user aware of all the terms and conditions of purchasing. Rather than hiding the info and having the users call customer support with complaints post-purchase and leaving bad reviews for the product, you would prefer to show all the necessary disclaimers up front.

Conclusion

• Put your customers/users first and put yourself in their shoes.
• Speak the language of the user.
• Design products are delightful and interactive but also seamless in functionality.
• Ask for little, give a lot.
• Keep it simple.

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All apps/features mentioned in the article have been designed by Flolab:

Ayopop | Android • iOS • Web
Ayopop helps Indonesians pay & manage their finances efficiently & smartly.

Cekaja | Web
Cekaja is a comprehensive financial and insurance comparison portal in Indonesia with hundreds of credit card, deposit and KTA products from dozens of banks.

FUNDtastic | Android • iOS • Web
FUNDtastic is an investment platform with products like Mutual Funds and Gold.

Omahdana | Web
In Omahdana, users can invest in businesses, or start fundraising for their venture. (Coming Soon)

Tanamduit | Android • iOS • Web
Tanamduit is a digital platform that comprehensively helps customers in financial planning, financial plan execution, and monitoring investment outcomes.