Designing Financially Inclusive Digital Solutions
#Research #UIUX
context
Migration of poor to urban environments for better and steady wages is quite common in developing countries, India is no exception to this. When migrant workforce move from their towns to bigger cities, they also leave behind their access to informal credit lines. Therefore leaving behind their financial support is crippling.
Pensaar Design carried out in-depth qualitative research of newly banked, migrant and DFS initiated population across 5 cities in India to deeply understand how migrants handled their money. Their attitude and behaviours regarding earning, spending and saving.
PROJECT goal
Identify opportunities & design digital financial solutions to bring about financial inclusivity for the newly banked, migrant, digital financial services initiated population.
PROCESS OVERVIEW
STORIES FROM THE FIELD
Sweety, a Karigar in Delhi with a small family made about 12,000/- rupees a month. Add to it her ailing husband’s earnings and she had found the most optimal way to keep her household running like a well oiled machine. She left a mark because she did not once complain- an impressive, confident woman, she had every penny accounted for - household expenses, children’s school fees, Monthly savings towards Bishi (informal savings club) and her ailing husband’s medical expenses.
In the time since we had met Sweety - approximately 2 months later, her husband’s health had deteriorated and he had been advised to undergo immediate surgery. It broke our hearts to meet the new Sweety. Broken, disoriented and suddenly helpless she said to us “Don’t ask me anything. I can’t think. I don’t know what to do and I can’t even begin to think about saving money”.
Unsaid needs discovered from the research
Solving for financial freedom
Ria had recently moved to Bangalore for work and was enjoying the freedom she had with her money. She was saving enough to go on holidays with friends and had just started to build a corpus so she could buy herself a car. She knew exactly how long it would take to buy the car she wanted and how she needed to change her lifestyle to achieve her goal.
Cut to 6 weeks later, she had undergone a major transition in her life. Ria was asked by her family to contribute towards the renovation of their home. Suddenly the car she was saving for seemed unattainable. There was no mention of postponing her goal, it was just gone.
