Problem
As young people are becoming priced out of the housing and investment market, how might the bank provide new digital solutions for young Canadians to thrive in today’s challenging economy?
Research
In Canada’s current economy, young adults are constantly facing financial obstacles and challenges due to rising housing costs and high investment barriers.
Our group started asking how we could help young adults improve their financial well-being and work toward their goals. With the challenge provided by Scotiabank and this key question in mind, we conducted initial research to better understand the common financial struggles young Canadians face. Through our research, we discover the following key insights:
68% of millennials don’t save their money because of other financial priorities, such as job security, relationships, and living situations
Loans and debt make up 20% of millennials monthly spending
75% of millennials cite that they don’t have enough time to do what they want as a primary worry in life.
User Interviews
To further our exploration of the problem, we conducted user interviews to get in-depth knowledge and understanding of our target user group. We spoke with young adults, ranging from 20 to 25 years old, to get their personal insights on the current financing and investing behaviors, habits, and goals.
Struggle with prioritizing their time & effort towards their finances. They understand that it’s important to make payments as soon as possible but often forget about them due to their busy lives
Have aspirations such as buying a house, but before they can do any of that, they need to pay their student debt first
Define
Building on our research, we developed personas, empathy maps, and a journey map to gain a deeper understanding of the key challenges faced by our target demographic. These tools not only highlighted critical pain points but also enabled us to craft a clear problem statement, which provided direction for ideating effective and impactful solutions.
Problem Statement
As a 22 to 30-year-old, I want to overcome my financial obstacles in order to achieve my life goals
User Persona (Hello Alexa 👋)
Alexa Sun is 30 years old, working as a sous chef at Catus Club Cafe. She wants to achieve her goals before settling down and having kids. However, she would not be able to achieve them because of OSAP.
Ideate
We brainstormed different concepts to tackle the problem. One of our early concepts was an education platform that would teach financial education.
However, this idea was questionable for our target demographic as we discovered that the learning content through quizzes and articles wasn’t digestible. They simply do not have enough time for this learning content.
In the later iteration process, we decided to steer away from the trivial features but focus on the aspects of tracking their debts and loans.
We validated this concept at our usability testing session with Five Participants.
We discovered that they want to celebrate their journey towards reaching goals and spark joy. They also want a good point for rewards balance to making it more motivating for users to engage with the solution.
Our solution is an ecosystem consists of a goal-setting product
Our business provides a platform that allows people to monitor the progress of their financial goals. It encourages young Canadians by incentivizing their actions in order to help them to be more confident about their financial future as well as to develop healthy financial habits.
The customers will be rewarded points for achievements and they can redeem them with popular Canadian loyalty programs. This would help young adults to develop healthy habits of making payments on time or even earlier.
it would help them to build a good credit score in the future to get a mortgage to buy their new house and car.
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