6 Key Fintech UX Design Trends to Pursue in 2023

Fintech market is changing, and products should too

Q2’22 saw the lowest amount of fintech funding since Q4’20. After a successful decade, the industry faces its first true test.

How does the uncertain future shape financial product development paths across the globe?

In this article, we’re discussing what UX design trends should be on every fintech company's radar in 2022.

“Profits over growth” is the industry’s new focus

<blockquote><p>“Both public and private markets have limited horsepower to invest at this moment in time due to repricing of portfolios and protecting existing investments.”</p><p>— Nigel Verdon, CEO at Railsr, in an interview for Sifted.eu</p></blockquote>

During the past few years, fintech startups’ growth was the key value indicator. In 2022, profitability becomes the new focus.

How are the companies responding to the pivot?

One of the core goals for organizations is improved customer retention achieved by UX design optimization.

Applying current fintech UX design trends to increase profitability

With increased pressure on achieving profitability, most businesses will look at ways to optimize their current operations. This includes a stronger focus on elevating the user experience of existing solutions and processes.

So, what features will we see more often in the upcoming months?

Here are 6 fintech design trends companies will focus on in 2022.

1. Personalization

Personalization means adjusting the experience to an individual user’s needs. It’s often confused with customization — allowing users to choose between options, like selecting the styles, sizes, or placement of widgets on their screen.

The difference is that personalization relies on anticipating those needs and automatically showing users a relevant experience, which decreases the cognitive labor required on their side. And there is no better way to keep users engaged than by making them feel the app was designed just for them.

When fintech apps adapt to each user’s journey, not only will that make the users feel understood, but they also help prevent the sense of being overwhelmed with information.

Companies following the trend

Subaio

Subaio, a Nordea-backed fintech startup, allows the bank’s Premium customers (who pay roughly $7 a month) to analyze, edit and cancel all their subscriptions within the banking app. All thanks to a partnership with Lunar — a subscription management platform.

Business benefits

The key benefit of personalized fintech design is allowing for satisfying the needs of a wider range of customers. Thanks to analyzing previous customers’ data, we may be able to create fintech products or services we might haven’t thought of when relying on traditional research methods.

Personalization increases:

• user engagement,
• long-term brand loyalty,
• brand reception.

It also helps to deeply analyze and micro-target individual customers.

Key trend drives

• The rise in popularity of open banking. It creates easy access to customer data that enables institutions to personalize users’ experiences.
• Technological innovation pushes more and more institutions to keep up with trends and be more appealing to customers.
• The need to be distinctive on the market and provide something unique that other brands don’t offer.

Use cases

• personalized navigation,
• predicting customer needs,
• providing financial management,
• custom-made product recommendations,
• creating promotional offers,
• offering personalized loans.

2. Artificial Intelligence

In recent years AI has become a critical part of the fintech industry, and its popularity is on the rise. The main areas of AI usage include collecting and managing data, analyzing personal spending habits, as well as safeguarding and facilitating transactions. The capacity to provide customers with a personalized experience and perfectly tailored products will soon become a significant competitive advantage in the fintech market.

Companies following the trend

Fintin

Fintin is a modular financial platform. It offers an intelligent, conversational interface based on natural language processing. The technology suggests customers personalized services based on their behavior and previous interactions with the business. It also manages instant communication for a perfect experience.

Ping An Bank

Ping An Bank is a Chinese joint-stock commercial bank headquartered in Shenzhen. For years, an AI financial assistant seemed like a faraway dream. Ping An Bank has made that dream a reality through AInn. Unlike other systems, AInn is considerate and proactive. It offers three key features: proactive service, timely advice, and smart recommendations. When a user is hesitant, AInn provides help even before the user asks. Timely guides pop up if a user gets lost in a process. Recommendations are made based on the individual and the situation.

Business benefits

Artificial Intelligence provides:

• increased security as the number and creativity of cyberattacks grows,
• lower costs and effort needed when providing customer service,
• improved risk score profiling.

Key trend drives

• General rise in popularity of AI.
• More and more companies studying their customers by analyzing their social networks and observing their online community activity.
• The rise in popularity of customer-centric services.
• Growing interest in data centralization — gathering data from various sources for a more complete analysis of customer behaviors.

Use cases

• chatbots and digital assistants,
• fraud detection and prevention,
• wealth management,
• financial assistants,
• accurate decision making,
• process optimization.

3. Biometric technologies

There are two types of biometric technologies. The first one, wider known as physical, relies on physical aspects like voice, fingerprints, or facial recognition. The second one, behavioral, relies on the recognition of behavior patterns that are impossible to capture and replicate. These two approaches can be successfully used in the fintech industry to improve systems’ or devices' security.

Companies following the trend

Garanti BBVA

Garanti BBVA is a Turkish financial services company. Recently, the company incorporated iris recognition technology to improve the mobile app login experience and security. Each month, almost 850,000 sessions are logged in through iris recognition. Moreover, the feature enables customers to start a transaction with a simple glance at their phone's camera.

TypingDNA

TypingDNA is a cybersecurity SaaS developing biometrics authentication solutions. One of their products, Verify 2FA, replaces SMS two-factor authentication with typing pattern identification — users retype displayed phrases while the tool measures typing rhythm and force. This allows for precise recognition without pulling the phone out of pocket.

Business benefits

The use of biometric technologies can help:

• reduce personal information leaks by simplifying the identification process,
• strengthen the application’s user identification security,
• improve fraud monitoring,
• meet the regulatory requirements and customer expectations.

Key trend drives

• Diminishing trust in traditional security protocols used to protect sensitive information.
• The need for intuitive and frictionless certification experiences.
• Changing consumer behaviors and expected accessibility to services resulting from increased use of mobile devices.
• Smartphone manufacturers’ shift to biometric authentication.

Use cases

• user login,
• accessing cloud financial services,
• facial recognition payment confirmation,
• voice recognition for voice assistance shopping,
• securing company’s devices through behavioral pattern recognition.

4. All-in-one marketplaces

The times when one had to go to a local bank branch to tend to their business are long gone. Nowadays, third-party integrations allow personal finance apps to do way more than just transfer money. Users get access to a wide range of financial services right at their fingertips. Both an average Joe and a financial expert can find something to satisfy their needs.

Companies following the trend

Revolut

Revolut is a British financial technology company that offers banking services. It allows users to open a bank account in minutes directly through a mobile app. Once the users access the app, they can view their spending analytics, manage subscriptions, split bills with others, create separate expense pockets, and manage investments — all in one place.

Business benefits

Providing one app that does it all allows companies to:

• deliver a wider range of services to a wider group of customers,
• build borderless, customer-centric services covering a greater market,
• gain competitive advantage,
• remove the bureaucratic burden,
• centralize their services.

Key trend drives

• Progressing digitalization.
• Growing financial literacy and curiosity among consumers.
• Progressing globalization.

Use cases

• money transfers,
• virtual credit cards,
• loans,
• insurances of various kinds,
• trading,
• etc.

5. Blockchain

Blockchain is a distributed decentralized ledger that transfers authority to a decentralized virtual network and allows for the development of entire ecosystems of fintech apps. It records digital transactions in a way that can’t be manipulated or controlled by governments, banks, or companies. Blockchain can transform regular financial processes as we know them today into entirely digital, transparent, secure, and efficient procedures.

Companies following the trend

Wirex

Wirex is a digital payment platform with a mission to make crypto and traditional currencies equal and accessible to everyone. The company promises real-time point-of-sale conversions, zero fees on foreign currency exchange, and up to 2% cryptocurrency rewards on all spending.

Business benefits

Blockchain makes it possible to:

• provide unprecedented transparency,
• make financial processes safer and immutable,
• reduce operation costs (especially for international transactions),
• process transactions faster, and lower delays in worldwide online payments,
• reduce paperwork,
• improve democracy and openness in financial services.

Key trend drives

• Boom of the cryptocurrency market (especially Bitcoin).
• Consumers’ diminishing trust in banks.
• Growing number of people using exclusively digital financial channels.
• Growth of customer-centric banking.

Use cases

• cryptocurrency payment services,
• executing peer-to-peer contracts,
• electricity sourcing,
• sports betting,
• building infrastructure,
• data analytics,
• Bitcoin debit cards.

Bonus one: BLIK payments

BLIK payment is the most popular and standard payment method in Poland (90% of bank customers in Poland use BLIK). By connecting a phone number with a banking app, a user gets access to 6-digit codes that expire after two minutes. With those codes, customers can confirm online payments, transfer money to others, withdraw them from ATMs, etc. The idea was inspired by cashless smartphone payments introduced by Google and Apple.

Companies following the trend

BNP Paribas

BNP Paribas is the second-largest banking group in Europe and ninth in the world. Its mobile app GOMobile for the Polish market offers convenient and safe mobile payments with BLIK. The technology enables consumers to pay for both traditional and online shopping, as well as withdraw cash from ATMs, all without using a card.

Business benefits

The key advantages of BLIK include:

• direct, instant payments,
• safer transactions,
• better user experience — customers don’t need to fill out any forms or do any paperwork; the feature can be accessed instantly,
• lower risk of errors when completing transactions.

Key trend drives

• Increasing popularity of cashless smartphone payments.
• Progressing digitalization and digital literacy.
• More consumers favoring convenience.

Use cases

• paying for online purchases and services,
• paying in brick-and-mortar stores,
• instant money transfers based on phone numbers,
• withdrawing and depositing money at an ATM.

Which way should your company go?

Having investigated each of the fintech UX design trends dominating the market, you might feel lost about what your company should do next.

Short answer: it depends on what’s your core business activity.

There are 3 key trends you could consider implementing regardless of your company’s profile:

1. Personalization — provide a better customer experience thanks to behavioral predictions and micro-targeting.
2. Biometric technologies — every fintech product benefits from improved log-in security and convenience, especially when used multiple times a day.
3. Artificial intelligence — improve your customer service and conversions by offering proactive support and service suggestions; increase the effectiveness of fraud detection and cyberattack management.

On the other hand, there are trends that will fit only specific types of fintech products:

1. All-in-one marketplaces — if you’re offering multiple services, make sure they’re easily accessible from one platform. With multiple alternatives on the market, users cherry-pick their providers for maximum convenience in the palm of their hands.
2. Blockchain — is an absolute must in cryptocurrency, betting, and data-analytics niches. It offers unprecedented transparency and improves democracy and openness in financial services.
3. BLIK payments — provides safe and instant payments both offline and online, making it a great fit for payment-related services.

Still uncertain which fintech design trends you should follow?

All choices come with risks. With multiple factors affecting the effectiveness of implemented solutions, predicting a feature’s success isn’t easy.

What, then, can you do to secure the triumph?

Make sure you:

• consider all the arguments for and against the feature,
• try evaluating the potential ROI,
• conduct user research, testing, and gather feedback on the proposed feature,
• investigate the failures and successes of similar fintech products — what did they do right and what went wrong?
• gather as many third-party opinions as you can — from UX designers, users, and industry specialists, just to name a few.

Since 2014, our UX design and software development experts have helped 67 fast-growing companies make impactful research-based decisions about their web, mobile, and desktop apps.

One fintech startup we had the pleasure to work with — GOKONG, came to us with the challenge to bring the health monitoring experience from Apple Health and Fitbit into personal finance management.

With intense product workshops, app's usability audit, in-depth competition and user research, we managed to build a product that, just 8 months after launch, was bought by a Swiss banking leader.

Curious what insights can we bring into your fintech app development roadmap?

Book a consultation with the same UX designers who impacted GOKONG’s success — Claim your date today.