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Oportun
OVERVIEW
Oportun is a financial tech company that offers accessible and inclusive financial solutions through the power of AI, primarily focusing on underserved and low-income communities. Their design philosophy aims to reduce barriers to financial inclusion by creating aesthetically pleasing, user-centric experiences that empower individuals to access affordable loans, build credit, and improve their financial well-being.
Many of Oportun's users have close family members that live abroad and usually send money back home at regular intervals throughout the year. Because many of our users are in tricky financial situations, the high cost of sending money abroad hinders this process for many.
ROLE
Product Designer
Product Strategy, User Research, Interaction, Visual design, Prototyping
Understanding the Problem
"I send money home to my mother and nephews multiple times a month, but between the fees and the time it takes for them to receive the funds, I am beginning to look for other options."
-Luis, Oportun member
User Research was our Guiding Light
Our Research Informed Our Decisions
Based off of our findings from reaching out to over 30 Oportun members, we were able to come away with two key bits of info.
With this info, we were able to make informed decisions to craft what an MVP would look like for our users. We were able to identify the following key user stories:
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Send Money Instantly. Users should not have to wait for their funds to arrive at their destination. With our solution, funds are sent seamlessly and instantly.
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Send Funds Conveniently. Our users should be able to send funds from the comfort of their own homes, not at a crowded grocery store, or a long Western Union line.
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Send Money Cost-Efficiently. Our users should not have to pay exorbitant fees when sending money to thir families who are in need. Our solution will utilize technology to alleviate these costs.
Engineering Considerations
With any UX project, it is always smart to include engineers as soon as possible. This helped us understand any constraints we may have to work within, whether it be time, or technical feasibility. This allowed us to ensure our solution was possible. After consulting with the Engineering team, we found that our solution could be powered using what is known as "The Stellar Network" which is essentially a pathway where real currency can be sent, with a cryptocurrency as the intermediary.
Key Takeaways
Our main goal was to provide our users a way to send money abroad, without having to deal with the pain points that current solutions come with. Through research we identified those pain points to be the time it takes for funds to be sent, the cost and fees that are associated with the payment, and the time it takes for the funds to receive their destination.
We were able to provide an MVP that accounted for all of the pain points we were trying to solve for our users. Key Performance Indicators for this project were the amount of daily remittance payment users as well as the overall NPS questionnaire that was built into the platform.
I learned a lot throughout the course of this project:
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Include Engineering Teams Early. The earlier you include Engineering into the process, the better idea you will have of how feasible it is what you are proposing, as well as getting an understanding of any time constraints your team of engineers may be working against.
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MVP is Never the End. Although there are so many things you may have wanted to include in the first phase of your project, it does not mean it must be in the MVP. These items are to be well-documented for future iterations, phases, and the potential of a new designer joining the team and picking up where you left off.
Results
Saved users $5 per remittance transaction
Successfully onboarded 8,500 new remittance users within the first 3 months in production
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