HSBC
Millennials Onboarding
HSBC's cross-channel onboarding process is designed to help young millennials who are new to banking complete their first money transfer smoothly.
The millennial generation plays a vital role in our Asian wealth strategy at HSBC. In Hong Kong, their numbers increased by 30% in the first half of 2021, making up about 50% of all new bank accounts. Due to the unique expectations of this group, providing a personalized approach through traditional relationship managers is challenging.
I was tasked with designing an onboarding journey that effectively engaged and connected with millennials when I joined the team.
To comply with my non-disclosure agreement, I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in this case study. All information in this case study is my own and does not necessarily reflect the views of HSBC.
My Role
As UX lead, my role focused on:
Designing email and landing pages prompting app downloads.
Conducting user testing to identify and resolve pain points.
Optimizing UX through iterative prototyping based on user feedback.
Collaborating cross-functionally to craft tailored, engaging content.
Pitching concepts and refining through input from stakeholders and engineers.
Implementing a streamlined, mobile-first design system that boosted conversions.
The Challenge
My biggest challenges centered on sustaining engagement across channels, simplifying complex concepts, and driving app adoption.
With first-timers' limited attention spans, I had to think carefully about how to design each step of the journey to provide clear value and next steps. Financial jargon had to be distilled into plain language and intuitive flows. Optimizing cross-platform usage was crucial as well.
Define Users
I pearheaded extensive research to uncover our target users' needs. This included desk studies, face-to-face interviews, and working closely with our project manager and UI designers to analyze raw data.
Key insights pointed to three primary millennial personas that emerged:
The Shop Smarter - Savvy 29-year-old Deal Hunters who want tools to easily track spending and find price comparisons.
The Rainy Day Saver - Cautious 32-year-old Engineers seeking high-yield accounts to automatically save for unexpected expenses.
The Dream Vacationer - Adventurous 26-year-old Creatives looking to fund an annual overseas trip through a dedicated travel account.
These core user archetypes directly shaped our human-centered design approach. By deeply understanding their goals and pain points, we could craft experiences that simplified their financial lives.
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"As a savvy shopper, I want to easily track my spending and get alerts if I'm over budget so I can make smart purchasing decisions."
Andrew | The Shop Smart User
29 years old, avid online shopper, looks for deals and price compares
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"As someone who prepares for unexpected expenses, I want to open a high-yield savings account and automatically deposit funds each month so I'm ready for a rainy day."
Michelle | The Rainy Day Saver
32 years old, engineer, cautious and risk averse personality
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"As an adventurous traveler, I want to open a vacation fund that helps me save up for an amazing overseas trip each year."
Jennifer | The Dream Vacation Planner
26 years old, creative profession, loves to travel and experience new cultures
How might we…
…crafting an unintimidating experience focused on user needs - guiding them through onboarding with engaging copy, seamless functionality, and compelling mobile incentives?
Customer Journey Map
To gain first-hand insights, I conducted face-to-face interviews with 10 participants on our initial onboarding email and landing page designs. By mapping their entire journey, I gained true empathy for their motivations, barriers, and emotions at each step.
The initial concepts focused on:
1. Communicating the value of our email program.
2. Checklist emails guiding how to: download our app, activate security keys, set payment limits, and make third-party transfers.
3. Follow-up reminder emails on outstanding actions.
Tests revealed millennials don't fit neatly into personas; their expectations morph constantly, demanding services that adapt accordingly. No one-size-fits-all solution would suffice.
While feedback was largely positive, post-signup emails actually overwhelmed first-timers - Checklist emails with multi-step processes overwhelmed users instead of helping; Prescriptive timelines and reminders backfired, causing information overload.
These discoveries led our team toward a human-centered approach focused on user needs, not banking basics. Personalized journeys, intuitive assistance, simplified flows - this is what resonates.
Designs
Our research revealed millennials want banking that fits their lives, not the other way around. Leveraging our three core personas – the Shop Smarter, Rainy Day Saver, and Dream Vacationer – I designed simplified financial experiences centered on their goals.
These personalized concepts distilled complex finance into engaging stories that spoke to each user's aspirations. Reflecting mobile-first lifestyles, the email designs were visually slick and easily accessible.
When users clicked the "Rainy Day Saver" persona in our onboarding email, they reached a personalized landing page focused on unexpected expenses.
It outlined the importance of emergency funds and recommended tailored HSBC options based on their financial life stage.
Through storytelling, users met Alex, who modeled achieving savings goals using relevant tools. This humanized the guidance.
Bite-sized saving tips then leveraged Alex’s narrative to introduce tools to effortlessly build safety net through auto-savings and high-yield accounts.
A unified visual language maintained engagement across email and site. Key elements like color, illustration, typography and layout aligned to the persona’s lifestyle for a tailored feel.
The original checklist emails overwhelmed first-timers by cramming too many rigid steps and timelines. Our research revealed this contributed to info overload.
My redesign approach:
Focus each email on one visual, simplified call-to-action to avoid overload.
Chunk content into bite-sized, achievable modules with encouragement.
Recommend tools personalized to observed user behavior.
Test a conversational tone with no jargon.
Give users control over cadence and opt-out.
In short, guiding vs overburdening. The goal is empowering customers with the right tools at the right time through a human-centered email journey.
Design System
When designing the millennial onboarding experience, HSBC's established design system provided key benefits:
Brand consistency through shared UI elements.
Faster design leveraging existing components.
Smoother development with approved coded modules.
Guidance on tone and style for the audience.
By contributing new patterns, I helped improve the system:
Adding webpage and email templates and layouts tailored to this use case.
Advancing inclusive design based on user research insights.
Enabling greater personalization through modular components.
Adhering to proven patterns while contributing user-tested innovations back into the system allows HSBC to drive consistency yet continually evolve our human-centered experiences. I'm proud to collaborate strengthening this robust toolkit.
Results
I spearheaded optimizations to the post-signup user journey that improved key metrics:
24.5% increase in email clickthrough rates
15% reduction in app registration drop-off
18% decrease in abandonment during initial money transfers
Via research interviews and rapid prototyping, I identified and resolved pain points in the flows.
My cross-functional collaboration delivered simplified, mobile-optimized experiences focused on first-timer needs.
These improvements exemplify my dedication to streamlining complex user interactions through an empathy-driven design process that clears friction points and boosts engagement.
“Annie quickly adjusted to changes in project briefs, mastered the QA processes, and her willingness to learn and take on new creative challenges is something to be desired in any professional. This mixture of process mastery and creativity, set a great example for team (and for any team, really).”
Michiel Den Haerynck
Founder of Soda Club
