Tag: cross-platform

What product managers can learn about Design Systems

marcabraham1 Comment

What makes a good product? What makes a well designed product? A few years ago, I learned about design principles and how principles such as “not getting in the way (of the user)” and “content first” can drive product design. Imagine my initial confusion and intrigue, as a non-designer, when I first heard about a “design system”. Chris Messina – former designer at Uber – has come up with a useful definition of what a design system is:

 

“Design systems provide a convenient, centralized, and evolving map of a brand’s known product territories with directional pointers to help you explore new regions.”

 

Later, Messina went on to add that “Design never was just how it looks, but now it’s also how it sounds, how it speaks, and where it can go.” Apart from capturing how brand and product communicate, look and feel, a design system is also a critical component when it comes to scale. Just take this statement by Vikram Babu – product designer at Gigster – for example:

 

“The problem facing design today isn’t a shortage of skills or talent but that design doesn’t scale when you move from a few screens of designed components to a platform of developed patterns where adding people only complicates the problem… hence design systems.” 

 

The key thing I learned about the value of design systems is that they intend to go beyond just a collection of design elements. Typically, companies will have a style guide. However, more often than not these style guides contain a bunch of design elements or patterns, but not create a fully comprehensive design language or tone of voice, as Nathan Curtis – owner of the EightShapes design firm – explains:

 

“A style guide is an artefact of the design process. A design system is a living, funded product with a roadmap & backlog, serving an ecosystem.” 

 

This raises the question how one goes about creating a design system. Some things that I’ve learned in this respect:

Before you get started

  1. What’s your company vision look like? And is mission?
  2. Which problem is your company looking to solve and why? For whom?
  3. What are the company values which underpin your company culture, product and service?
  4. What problem(s) are we trying to solve through the design system? Why?
  5. What’s the desired impact we expect the design system to have on the way we work?

Getting started

  1. What does the current design and design look like? What works and what doesn’t? Identify the gaps.
  2. Define some underlying design principles, which underpin a fluid and developing ‘design ecosystem’ (see Airbnb as a good example; Fig. 1 below).
  3. Create a visual design language, which comprises a number of distinct but ever evolving components (I loved Adobe’s Nate Baldwin breakdown of some of these components; see Fig. 2 below). Common components of a visual design language are: colour, typography, iconography, imagery, illustrations, sizing and spacing.
  4. Create a User Interface and pattern library.
  5. Document what each component is and how to use it.

 

Fig. 1 – Airbnb design principles – Taken from: https://airbnb.design/building-a-visual-language/

  • Unified: Each piece is part of a greater whole and should contribute positively to the system at scale. There should be no isolated features or outliers.
  • Universal: Airbnb is used around the world by a wide global community. Our products and visual language should be welcoming and accessible.
  • Iconic: We’re focused when it comes to both design and functionality. Our work should speak boldly and clearly to this focus.
  • Conversational: Our use of motion breathes life into our products, and allows us to communicate with users in easily understood ways.

 

Fig. 2 – The foundation of creating a Visual Design Language by Nate Baldwin – Taken from: https://medium.com/thinking-design/what-is-a-design-language-really-cd1ef87be793

  • Clearly defined semantics (and no, “error”, “warning”, “success”, and “info” aren’t nearly enough)
  • Thorough and mature mapping of core elements of design with clear purposes and meanings
  • A solid family of UI components and patterns that effectively support the semantics, and use design elements (based on theirmeanings) to support the meaning of the components
  • Thorough, comprehensive documentation about the visual communication system

 

To make this a bit more concrete, I’ll look at three good examples of design systems, by Google, Bulb and Salesforce.

 

Google Material Design

 

 

Bulb

 

 

Salesforce Lightning Design System

 

 

 

Main learning point: It’s important for product managers to understand what a Design System is and the purposes it serves. Even if you’re not directly involved in creating or applying a Design System, it’s key to understand your company’s design language and how it applies to your product.

 

 

Related links for further learning:

  1. https://bulb.co.uk/blog/introducing-bulbs-design-system
  2. http://design.bulb.co.uk/#/patterns/styles/colors/README.md
  3. https://www.fastcompany.com/90160960/the-design-theory-behind-amazons-5-6-billion-success
  4. https://www.invisionapp.com/blog/guide-to-design-systems/
  5. https://www.invisionapp.com/blog/scale-design-systems/
  6. https://medium.muz.li/how-to-create-a-style-guide-from-scratch-tips-and-tricks-e00f25b423bf
  7. https://www.invisionapp.com/blog/secrets-design-leadership/
  8. https://www.lightningdesignsystem.com/
  9. https://www.uxpin.com/create-design-system-guide
  10. https://medium.freecodecamp.org/how-to-build-a-design-system-with-a-small-team-53a3276d44ac
  11. https://www.uxpin.com/studio/ebooks/create-design-system-guide-checklist/
  12. https://blog.prototypr.io/design-system-ac88c6740f53
  13. https://medium.com/thinking-design/what-is-a-design-language-really-cd1ef87be793
  14. https://airbnb.design/building-a-visual-language/
  15. https://material.io/design/

Product review: Rocket Mortgage’s Instant Mortgages

marcabraham2 Comments

Can the whole process of getting a mortgage made a lot easier!? Whether you’re looking to buy a home or refinance your current one, the mortgage process can be a real pain in the neck: slow, stressful and opaque. Given the emergence of players such as Trussle, Habito – both UK-based online mortgage brokers – and my professional interest from leading product at Settled, I’m keen to explore this further.

Let’s start with a look at Rocket Mortgage, an “instant mortgage” product by Quicken Loans.

My quick summary of Rocket Mortgage before using it: I expect a product that makes it very quick and easy for a me as a consumer to apply for a mortgage.

How does Rocket Mortgage explain itself in the first minute: “You May Be Surprised to See How Much You Can Save – Can’t Hurt to Look” and “We’ve Reinvented the Mortgage Process to Put the Power in Your Hands” are two strap-lines on Rocket Mortgage homepage that stand out to me. Both lines are ‘above the fold’ and do make me curious to learn more about what Rocket Mortgage does (differently) to established mortgage providers.

How does Rocket Mortgage work? Mortgage applicants can submit their personal and financial information online (“Share Your Info”), and they receive a mortgage quote in return. This initial quote can be reviewed and customised to meet one’s personal needs and circumstances (“Explore Your Options”).

Let’s look at the individual steps in more detail:

User answer pre-approval questions

To apply for a Rocket Mortgage loan, you’ll first need to create an account by entering your name and email address, followed by choosing a password. Once you’ve clicked the “Save & Continue” button, you’ll be presented with a number of questions about your personal situation, both from a personal and a financial point of view:

User uploads personal assets

Rocket Mortgage will connect to your bank account(s) and your asset information will then be uploaded automatically onto the platform. You can then update the information or remove assets from consideration from your mortgage application, , after the boxes have been auto-filled. With the advent of PSD2 and open banking, I expect loads of US mortgage lenders and startups to enable a similar synchronisation with a user’s personal accounts.

If you have any other financial assists, like investments in shares via platforms such as Betterment and Wealthify, you will need to enter this data manually as well as related documents. The same applies to Rocket Mortgage requiring you to enter specific info to be able to generate a personal credit report and score. In future, I expect platforms like these to seamlessly integrated with credit score companies like Experian and Equifax.

User explores options

 

User obtains a mortgage rate

Once you’ve locked down a mortgage rate, there’s a separate Rocket Mortgage online tool which lets you finalise the mortgage.

Who else is doing this? I had a brief look at “mello”, the digital loan platform by loanDepot, and the product and its experience feels quite similar to Rocket Mortgage. In the UK, Molo is a new player on the scene, promising to “reimagine mortgages.”

Main learning point: It’s clear for everyone to see that these players are aiming to make the experience of applying for a mortgage as intuitive, transparent and quick as possible.

 

Related links for further learning:

  1. https://www.highya.com/rocket-mortgage-reviews
  2. https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/24/this-could-be-the-mortgage-industrys-iphone-moment/
  3. https://studentloanhero.com/featured/quicken-loans-review-rocket-mortgage/
  4. https://digit.hbs.org/submission/quicken-loans-rocketing-forward-the-digital-mortgage/
  5. https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/mortgages/for-rocket-and-its-rivals-mortgage-advice-is-next/
  6. https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/mortgages/loandepot-mortgage-loans-review/
  7. https://www.loandepot.com/blog/inside-look-loandepot-mello
  8. https://www.roostify.com/
  9. https://molofinance.com/

App review: Receipt Bank

marcabrahamLeave a comment

It isn’t often that one of the apps that I use on a regular basis attracts a large round of funding but it happened recently with Receipt Bank, a London based started which “makes your bookkeeping, faster, easier and more efficient.” Last month, Receipt Bank received a Series B investment worth $50 million from New York based Insight Venture Partners.

Receipt Bank, which started in 2010, targets accountants, bookkeepers and small businesses. It offers them an online platform through which users can submit their invoices, receipts, and bills by taking a picture and uploading it through Receipt Bank’s mobile app (see Fig. 1), desktop app (see Fig. 2), or an email submission. Receipt Bank’s system then automatically extracts relevant data, sorts and categorises it. Apart from viewing your processed expenses online, Receipt Bank also publishes everything to the user’s accounting software of choice, FreshBooks or Xero for example.

Fig. 1 – Screenshot of Receipt Bank iOS app

 

 

Fig. 2 – The entry in Receipt Bank for one of my receipts

Given that I’ve been using Receipt Bank for a while now; instead of just reviewing existing functionality, I’ve also had a think about how I’d use a $50m war chest to further build out the Receipt Bank product:

  1. Faster! Faster! Faster! – When I started using Receipt Bank last year, I emailed the customer support team enquiring about the wait between submitting a picture of a receipt and it being “ready for export”. I got a friendly reply explaining that “we ask for a maximum of 24 hours to process items, but we are usually much faster than that.” The customer support adviser also explained that “the turnaround time also depends on the number of items waiting to be processed by the software and also their quality.” I’m sure Receipt Bank uses some form of machine-learning, algorithms to automatically interpret and categorise the key data fields from the picture of a receipt. As the field of Artificial Intelligence continues to evolve, I expect Receipt Bank to be able to – eventually – process receipts and invoices within seconds, with no need for the user to add or edit any info processed. Because I envisage machine learning to be the core driver of Receipt Bank’s proposition, I suggest spending at least half of its latest investment on AI technology and engineers specialised in machine learning.
  2. Not just tracking my bills and invoices – Yes, everybody is jumping on the chatbot wagon (and some of the results are frankly laughable). However, I do believe that if Receipt Bank can learn a sufficient amount about its customers and their spending and accounting behaviours, it will be able to provide them with tailored advice and predictions. For example, if I pay my supplier in China a fixed amount per month to keep my stock up, I’d like to ask Receipt Bank’s future “Expense Assistant” how my supplier payments will be affected if there’s massive volatility in the exchange rate between the British Pound and the Chinese Yuan. Similarly, when I look at most of today’s finance departments, the people in these teams seem to spend on matching the right payments received to the relevant invoice(s) sent out. I realise that the machine learning around multiple invoices wrapped into a single payment is easier said than done, but I don’t think it will be impossible and the $25m investment into AI (see point 1. above) should help massively.
  3. What if the days of paper bills are numbered!? – Now that I’ve effectively spent $25m on AI technology, I’ve got $25m left. The first thing I’d do with this remaining money is to prepare for scenarios where invoices or receipts are no longer issued on paper but provided orally. At the moment, capability like Alexa Expense Tracker is mostly used for personal expenses, but I do envisage a future where people use Alexa or Siri to add and track their expenses. Given that voice technology is still very much in its infancy, I suggest restricting Receipt Bank’s investment into this area to a no more than $1m.
  4. Integrate more (and please don’t forget about Asia) – If I were Receipt Bank I’d probably use about $10m of the remaining fund to enter new geographies and integrate with additional systems. For example, I like how Sage’s Pegg hooks into any expenses you record on your mobile, whether it’s via Slack, Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, etc. I don’t know whether Receipt Bank is looking to enter the Asian market, but I feel there’s great opportunity to integrate with messenger apps like WeChat and Hike, without spending more than $2m on development and marketing. Also, integrating with payment processors, like Finsync did recently with Worldpay, is an integration avenue worth considering! 
  5. But don’t forget about the current product! – I feel Receipt bank would be remiss if it were to forget about improving its current platform, both in terms of functionality and user experience. For example, I can’t judge how well Receipt Bank does in retaining its customers, but I feel there are a number of ways in which it can make the existing product ‘work harder’ (see Fig. 3 below). In my experience, some of my proposed improvements and features shouldn’t break the bank. By spending about $1m on continuous improvements over a number of years, Receipt Bank should have at least $20m left in the bank, as a buffer for difficult times and any new opportunities that might arise during the product lifecycle.

Fig. 3 – Suggestions to make Receipt Bank’s existing product work harder:

  1. Some touches of gamification – I’d argue that the longevity of the relationship between Receipt Bank and an individual user is determined by how often the users uploads bills onto the platform. I assume that most users will most probably not view managing their expenses as fun, I think it would be good to look at ways to make the experience more fun. For example, I could get a gold star from my accountant once I’ve successfully synced my month’s expenses into my accounting system. I feel that there’s plenty of room to reinforce the current gamification elements that Receipt Bank uses. For example, the message that Receipt Bank managed to save 27 minutes of my time doesn’t really do it for me (see Fig. 4 below). Instead, the focus could be on the productivity gain that I’ve made for billable work (if I’m a freelancer for example).
  2. Better progress and status updates – Even if it does continue to take up to 24 hours. to categorise and process my expenses, it would be great if Receipt Bank could make its “in progress” status more intuitive and informative.
  3. Clearer and stronger calls to action – For example, I can see that I’m not making the best use of my Receipt Bank subscription (see Fig. 5 below). However, there are no suggestions on specific actions I can take to get more value from my Receipt Bank plan.

Fig. 4 – Screenshot my Receipt Bank usage

Fig. 5 – Screenshot of my Receipt Bank “Usage summary”

Main learning point: Having thought about Receipt Bank’s current product offering, and my understanding of their target market, I suggest investing a good chunk of the recent investment into optimising the machine learning algorithms in such a way that both processing speed and accuracy are significantly increased. By doing this, the customer profile and behavioural data generated, will create additional opportunities to further retain customers and offer adjacent products and services.

Related links for further learning:

  1. http://uk.businessinsider.com/receipt-bank-raises-50-million-from-insight-venture-partners-2017-7
  2. https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/20/receipt-bank-raises-50-million-insight-venture-partners/
  3. https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/receipt-bank-business-expense-scanner-tracker/id418327708?mt=8
  4. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.receiptbank.android&hl=en_GB 
  5. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2017/07/07/machine-learning-artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-accounting/#49bb42ac2dd1
  6. https://hellopegg.io/
  7. http://uk.pcmag.com/cloud-services/87846/feature/23-must-have-alexa-skills-for-your-small-business
  8. https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/tech/accounting-software/case-study-receipt-banks-rapid-growth
  9. https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/70263/finsync-connects-with-worldpay-us
  10. http://www.bankingtech.com/520502/symitars-episys-core-system-integrated-with-amazon-echo-baxter-cu-an-early-taker/

Learning more about the Fintech ecosystem in China

marcabrahamLeave a comment

In a few weeks’ time, I’ll be travelling to Hong Kong for the first time, looking to visit Shenzhen as well. I’m hoping it will be a great opportunity for me to learn more about the needs of Chinese customers and get a better feel for the Chinese Fintech scene. To start preparing for my trip, I used a recent report by EY/DBS Bank titled “The Rise of FinTech in China” to learn more about key characteristics of the Chinese Fintech space.

I’ve looked at the ‘current state’ of Fintech in China, both from a customer and a market perspective, and these are my main takeaways from the EY/DBS report:

  1. Fintech activity in seven vertical markets – EY/DBS’ report outlines the seven key verticals in which Chinese Fintech businesses are active (see Fig. 1 below). At a first glance, that the lion’s share of innovation by Chinese Fintech players thus far has been in the payments and e-wallets space. I’ve written previously about the absolute rise of alternative payment methods in China, mostly via mobile and predominantly driven by Alipay and WeChat.
  2. Chinese customers are embracing alternative payment and insurance methods – The EY/DBS report contains a useful diagram that outlines the percentage of customers per Asian country using specific Fintech services (see Fig. 2 below). Based on this diagram, it looks like both payments/remittances and insurance are already quite established in China, with opportunities for lending and personal wealth management to truly take off soon.
  3. Customer focus on online experience and functionality – A recent study by EY explored the appetite of Chinese consumers for non banks over traditional banks. It was interesting to read about the value placed on “better online experience and functionality”, as a key reason for using non banks over traditional players. One of my assumptions here is that Chinese consumer prefer banking services which are fully integrated into their daily lives, thinking about how WeChat seamlessly integrates payments into its messenger app.
  4. Alternative payment methods; disruption hasn’t finished yet – I had never given that much thought to low credit card penetration rates across China, but the stats in the EY/DBS report speak volumes in this regard (see Fig. 4 below). The report offers a pretty straightforward explanation for this phenomenon; a strong adoption of alternative payment methods and e-wallets. Unionpay Quick is a good example of a contactless payment method that is becoming more and more ubiquitous in China, particularly in so-called “first tier cities”.

Main learning point: Having read the EY/DBS report, I do feel that China is quite far ahead of the Western world in certain areas of Fintech, particularly in the payments and e-wallet space.  In the west, Fintech has been responsible for a lot of ‘unbundling’ of traditional banking services. In Asia – in China in particular – my feeling is that things are moving in the opposite direction: seamlessly integrating financial activities with people’s day to day activities. Alipay, WeChat and, in India, Paytm are leading the way in this regard.

 

Fig. 1 – Chinese FinTech activity in seven key vertical markets – Taken from: “The Rise of FinTech in Asia – Redefining Financial Services” by EY / DBS 

  1. Payments and e-wallets A mobile payments ecosystem facilitated by e-commerce and social media players, of which Alipay (of Ant Financial) and Tenpay (a Tencent company) dominate the market. Other notable players include UnionPay, ICBC e-wallet, JD Pay/Wallet (of JD.com) and 99bill (of Dalian Wanda Group).
  2. Supply chain and consumer finance E-commerce players lend to underbanked or unbanked individuals and small medium enterprises (SMEs) by leveraging users’ merchant data on the platform. Key participants include Ant Financial and MyBank (Alibaba), WeBank with WeChat (Tencent), JD Finance (JD.com) and Gome Electronic Appliance, which recently ventured into providing financial services for individual customers and suppliers.
  3. Peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms P2P platforms create a marketplace for peers to lend to individuals and SMEs underserved by the traditional lending sector. Market leaders are Lufax (Ping An Insurance), Yirendai (CreditEase), Rendai, Zhai Cai Bao (Alibaba) and Dianrong (the co-founder of Lending Club).
  4. Online funds Funds linked to payment platforms that offer ease of access and more competitive returns than the historically low deposit rates. Primary participants are Yu’e Bao of Ant Financial, Li Cai Tong (Tencent) and Baifa (Baidu).
  5. Online insurance E-insurance sold through e-commerce and online wealth management (WM) platforms. Notable brands are platforms by the People’s Insurance Company of China (PICC), Ping An, and Zhong An (in partnership with Ping An).
  6. Personal finance management Recently developed mobile-centric finance solutions providing access to mutual funds though stock trading apps. These platforms offer offline-to-online activity, with online brokers accounting for over 92% of new clients. Key players include Ant Financial (Alibaba), Li Cai Tong (Tencent), Baifa (Baidu), Wacai, Tongbanjie, Zhiwanglicai (CreditEase) and JD Finance (JD.com).
  7. Online brokerage Investment, social network and information portals for investors in China, providing thematic investing via websites and mobile apps, and offered by FinTech firms such as Snowball Finance, Xianrenzhang and Yiqiniu.

Fig. 2 – Percentage of banking/financial services customers using FinTech services – Taken from: DBS Bank, 2016

screen-shot-2017-01-31-at-12-02-32

Fig. 3 – Reasons for using a non-bank rather than traditional bank – Taken from: EY Global Consumer Banking Survey 2016

screen-shot-2017-02-01-at-15-38-46

Fig. 4 – Payment method used most regularly the past 3 months – Taken from: FT Confidential Research survey, May 2016

screen-shot-2017-02-01-at-15-46-26

                                                       Source: Survey of 1,000 urban consumers conducted by FT Confidential Research, a unit of the Financial Times18, May 2016

App review: Zuora

marcabrahamLeave a comment

One of the product areas I’m keen to learn more about is billing; understanding how small businesses go about (recurring) billing. A few years ago, I used Recurly to power subscription management and payments for a music streaming service. I’ve now discovered Zuora, who aspire to “turn your customers into subscribers.”

“The world subscribed” – I really like Zuora’s vision – “the world subscribed” – and its 9 keys to building a subscription based business (see Fig. 2 below). Zuora aims to make managing subscription payments as intuitive as possible. For example, when I look at the info that Zuora provides on a specific customer account, it feels clear and clean, enabling the user to digest key account information at a glance (see Fig. 3 below).

Part of an ecosystem – The thing I like best about Zuora is the numerous integrations it has with partners and marketplace apps. As a result, Zuora users can integrate easily with payment gateways such as Adyen and link with accounting software packages such as QuickBooks. Similarly, there’s a whole host of apps and plug-ins that Zuora users can choose from.

Main learning point: Even though subscription management / billing forms the core of Zuora’s value proposition, I feel that there’s much more to it: helping people run their business operations as efficiently as possible. I don’t know whether the people at Zuora would agree with me on this vision, but I believe that, especially through it’s 3rd party integrations, Zuora can support its users more widely in their day-to-day operations.

Fig. 1 – Screenshot of Zuora’s “Quotes” overview – Taken from: https://www.getapp.com/finance-accounting-software/a/zuora/

9966-1523463673

Fig. 2 – Zuora’s 9 keys to building a subscription based business – Taken from: https://www.zuora.com/vision/the-9-keys/

  1. Price – Find your sweet spot. Dynamically adjusting pricing and packaging is the surest way to attract and retain customers, and multiply the value of your relationships.
  2. Acquire – Boost subscription rates with tools like flexible promotions, integrated quoting and multi-channel commerce.
  3. Bill – Subscriptions mean more invoices and more payments. Automatically generate fast, accurate bills and deliver them online.
  4. Collect – Get paid. Collect payments instantly through automated and manual channels, while maximising completed transactions and minimising write-offs.
  5. Nurture – Build beautiful relationships. Keep your customers engaged and happy. Seamlessly manage rapidly changing upgrades, conversions, renewals and other orders.
  6. Account – Measure everything. Twice. Zuora plugs straight into your accounting software and General Ledger. Register subscription and process deferred revenue with ease.
  7. Measure – No paper, no worries. Analytics make forecasting, accounting close and audits a breeze. Plus, it gives you the right insight your subscribers, so you can make smarter decisions.
  8. Iterate – Try something new every day. Subscriptions can involve complex customer relationships. Zuora lets you iterate and test what’s working with just a couple of clicks.
  9. Scale – Get growing. Zuora is built on a secure, scalable technology infrastructure. So wherever you start out, we’ll keep the system running as you grow.
Fig. 3 –  Screenshot of Zuora’s “Customer Accounts” page – Taken from: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/zuora#/entity
zuora-1
Related links for further learning:
  1. https://www.boomi.com/solutions/zuora/
  2. https://www.zuora.com/product/partners/
  3. https://connect.zuora.com/appstore/apps
  4. http://fortune.com/2014/06/10/10-questions-tien-tzuo-founder-and-ceo-zuora/
  5. http://www.forbes.com/sites/edmundingham/2015/10/13/why-own-anything-anymore-zuora-founder-explains-rise-of-subscription-economy-at-subscribed-ldn/#735812d65a49
  6. http://blog.servicerocket.com/podcasts/episode-7
  7. https://www.zendesk.com/customer/zuora/
  8. https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0#.xbezrudzi

App review: Swish

marcabrahamLeave a comment

New payment technologies seem to be springing up left right and centre … Swish is another innovative payment platform which I encountered recently. About two years ago six Swedish banks launched Swish. Swish is a mobile app that lets people use their mobile phones to make payments and transfer payments to someone else’s banks. The money gets sent in real-time between the bank accounts and consumers subscribe to the service via their bank.

swish_app

Fig. 1 – Screenshot of Swish – Taken from: http://www.windowscentral.com/send-and-receive-funds-easily-swish-windows-phone

“Payments. Anytime. Anywhere.” is Swish’s motto. I can see how Swish’s mobile point of sale functionality competes directly with the likes of Square, iZettle and Klarna. The biggest difference between Swish and iZettle is that for the later retailers need to have a card reader to accept payments. With Swish this isn’t strictly necessary, provided you’ve authenticated your account details via the Swish app (see step 3 in Fig. 2 below).

 

screen-shot-2016-10-08-at-08-17-20

Fig. 2 – Swish Mobile POS – Taken from: http://swishme.com/mobile-pos/

Other competitors in Swish space are Whywallet and Seamless. With Seamless for example, consumer payments are encrypted and secured through one’s PIN code. As a result – similar to Swish – there’s no longer a need for a user to enter her bank or credit card details when paying (see Fig. 3 below).

downloadproces_01092015_ie_eng

Fig. 3 – Onboarding process for Seamless’ SEQR mobile wallet – Taken from: https://www.seqr.com/nl/en/faq/

Main learning point: Even by just looking at the number of competitors in the payments space, it’s easy to see how payment experiences will become ultra seamless in just a few years’ time. With its focus on simplifying payments as much as possible, Swish is no exception in this respect.

Related links for further learning:

  1. http://ecommercenews.eu/swedish-banks-want-use-swish-ecommerce/
  2. https://www.finextra.com/pressarticle/61536/swish-payments-obtains-visa-membership-ahead-of-european-pilot
  3. http://www.paymentscardsandmobile.com/swish-mobile-payments-amazing-success/
  4. http://www.windowscentral.com/send-and-receive-funds-easily-swish-windows-phone
  5. http://swishme.com/mobile-pos/
  6. https://www.seqr.com/nl/en/faq/

Seamless payments – Learning more about Dwolla and their API platform

marcabrahamLeave a comment

I recently heard Shamir Karkal, Head of Open APIs at BBVA, talking about open platforms and I was intrigued. In the podcast episode Shamir talked about the power of APIs, but at the same time stressed the importance of having a strong platform that these API end points can hook into.

Shamir talked about building a product with a platform attached. Instead of just building a set of APIs, we should treat APIs as a way in for customers, developers and third parties to hook into the capabilities of our business. For example, hooking into all the things that banks typically tend to do well: compliance, risk management and customer support.

My ears really perked up as soon as Shamir started talking about Dwolla. Dwolla is US based peer-to-peer payments company, whose mission it is to facilitate “Simple payments. No transaction fees.” Dwolla is powered by APIs, making it easy for US users to link their Dwolla account to a US bank account or credit union account to move money. Setting up a Dwolla account is free, and there’s no per transaction fee. Users can collect payment on an invoice, send a one-time or recurring payment, or payout a large number of people at once. Dwolla also offers this a white label solution (see Fig. 1 below).

dwolla-white-label-api

Fig. 1 – Dwolla’s white label version of their API – Taken from: http://apievangelist.com/2015/09/03/dwolla-just-released-a-white-label-version-of-their-api-are-you-ready-for-the-wholesale-api-economy/

In essence, what Dwolla does is enabling real-time payments between Dwolla accounts and another bank account that users want to send money to. Dwolla are integrated with banks such as BBVA, having Dwolla APIs ‘talk’ to the bank’s APIs. Dwolla has created some form of a protocol in the form of FiSync which aims to make it more secure for users to transmit information between accounts. FiSync enables the use of secure authentication and tokenisation in the comms between Dwolla and accounts like those of BBVA Compass. This way, BBVA Compass account holders don’t have to share their account info with Dwolla (see Fig, 2 below).

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Fig. 2 – Workflow of a connecting a FiSync-enabled bank account to Dwolla – Taken from: https://www.dwolla.com/updates/breaking-down-real-time-secure-authentication/

Main learning point: I love how Dwolla’s proposition is almost entirely API based, making it easy for its users to transfer money to bank accounts and credit union accounts. Dwolla definitely feels more seamless, secure and cost-efficient compared to the way in which users traditionally transfer money from one account to another.

Related links for further learning:

  1. http://11fs.co.uk/podcasts/ep111-interviewed-innovators-really-changing-banking/
  2. https://www.bbva.com/en/news/disciplines/shamir-karkal-building-financial-future-bbvas-platform/
  3. http://finovate.com/open-api-shamir-karkal-to-head-bbvas-new-developer-platform/
  4. http://apievangelist.com/2015/09/03/dwolla-just-released-a-white-label-version-of-their-api-are-you-ready-for-the-wholesale-api-economy/
  5. http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS9H2Y_7.5.0/com.ibm.dp.doc/oauth_threeleggedflow.html
  6. https://www.dwolla.com/updates/breaking-down-real-time-secure-authentication/
  7. http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/1940212-bbva-compass-dwolla-faq?b_id=5440
  8. https://www.bbvacompass.com/compass/dwolla/