---
title: Financial wellbeing in banking
client: Auckland Savings Bank
year: 2023
date: 2023-01-01
---

# Financial wellbeing in banking

With [Auckland Savings Bank](https://www.asb.co.nz/) in 2023 I designed a screen-assisted financial wellbeing service that facilitated a healthy conversation between a banker and a customer. We used the learnings from that service to scale into core app features to encourage positive behaviours with money.

This work won an [Australian Good Design Award](https://good-design.org/projects/helping-asb-support-the-financial-wellbeing-of-all-new-zealanders/).

<video src="https://gzron00wavzc73b5.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/fwb-0.mp4" alt="In slow motion, showing 2 people working together in front of a shared desktop computer screen experience, shifting their focus between an iPad, paper worksheets on the table, and the desktop screen."
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## Context

As of 2023, 74% of New Zealand households were either already in financial difficulty or had little financial resilience. There was, and still is, a clear need for change and for promoting the financial wellbeing of everyday Kiwis.

ASB, a bank in Aotearoa New Zealand, was undergoing a large‑scale reset of their core experiences and needed to figure out how to address the financial wellbeing gap and bake their values into the heart of it all.

I was the designer on a team that explored how the bank could better support customers in making positive financial decisions.

<video src="https://gzron00wavzc73b5.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/pay-yourself-2.mp4" alt="A hand holds a phone and navigates a prototype, showcasing dragging a slider back and forth to see graph changes."
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## Human, small-scale learning

We started with prototyping, testing and creating a pilot for a new financial wellbeing 1:1 conversation service. It involved a private financial review alongside a human conversation about the values and goals of a customer.

It looked like a shared‑screen app, an iPad with a quiz and graphed stats, and a booklet to write down key info.

![A table with a screen, an iPad and a printed booklet, and worksheets — all sporting Financial Wellbeing branding](/images/work/financial-wellbeing/fwb-2.png "The ingredients of a session.")

Each input was designed to help a customer self‑identify the disconnection between their current actions and their goals, and to identify clear opportunities. This rounded out with creating an action plan and literally helping the customer take the first step, generating momentum by ticking off the first box.

I'm pretty proud of how this service helped people — in our concept testing 4 out of 5 customers said the next day they felt less anxious about money and felt more in control, and 5 of 5 took additional action at home, independent of 1:1 guidance.

![A circle table with 2 men sitting opposite, talking to one another.](/images/work/financial-wellbeing/fwb-3.avif "Me (right) gathering feedback post session.")

We eventually realised this as a core service offering called the Financial Wellbeing Review, which prioritised the most important aspects of the 1:1 conversation and combined it with an interactive shared screen to bring its time significantly down.

It's since launched to all ASB branches in Aotearoa New Zealand and is now a core part of ~75,000 conversations each year.

## Scaling to the core app

The second phase took the learnings from that human conversation and scaled them up to the core app experience. We explored how similar themes of transparency, providing the right information at the right time, automation, and explicit control could empower customers to build their own money system and make the best decisions for them.

ASB was undergoing a large digital transformation project at the same time, which included a refreshed design system and plans to recreate their core app suite — I was able to leverage these to prototype new experiences.

<video src="https://gzron00wavzc73b5.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/pay-yourself.mp4" alt="A hand holds a phone and navigates a prototype, showcasing dragging a slider back and forth to see money transfer total changes." title="Surfacing impact of decisions on financial wellbeing factors."
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With the team I prototyped and tested various concepts based on winning and impactful ideas we learned about in the conversation design;

- Encouraging positive behaviours on windfalls
- Controllable set-and-forget automations
- Surfacing the right info at the right time

In testing these prototypes we found customers reacted positively and had strong desire to adopt them to help them manage their money better.

> “I would use this app 100%, I’m not good at money and I don’t know how to manage it. This takes out the thinking... like the good angel sitting on my shoulder.”

> “I found it very helpful and something I would absolutely like to use... I’d join a bank for an app like this.”

![A screenshot from a design tool showing colourful, whacky visual designs of banking app screens side by side.](/images/work/financial-wellbeing/fwb-8.png "We got to explore some pretty wild visual directions alongside a budding and playful design system.")

## Key learning

No nudge or notification can change a person’s behaviour alone, and designing that just annoys people.

Instead, design needs to focus on providing the right information at the right time, and making positive actions stupidly easy, to empower someones intrinsic motivation. Capture the momentum of a moment.

This can happen in an app for micro‑moments every day, or can scale all the way to lengthy 1:1 appointments that provide clarity and the ability to take action without dictation.

## In collaboration with

- Courtney Gribble, Product Manager
- Tash Pagano, Design Strategy
- Aradhna Padayachie, Design Strategy
- Bella Miller, Research
- Simon Hopkins, Research
- Yasin Masukor, Product Design
- Nick Gower, SME