EQ Bank: Notice Savings Account
How we strategically designed a unique financial product that attracted over 50,000 new customers with massive growth of over 300% stable deposits in 6 months
EQ Bank, a Schedule I digital bank in Canada, launched in 2016 and has since amassed over $9 billion in deposits, serving more than 500,000 customers as of OCT 2024. Recognized as Canada's leading bank, EQ Bank secured the #1 position on Forbes' World's Best Banks list in 2024, a title it has held since 2021.
Role, responsibilities, project duration
As Senior Product Designer for EQ Bank's Notice Savings Account (NSA), I led the end-to-end design and development (alongside product manager & engineer manager) of an innovative savings solution that balanced higher interest rates with a notice period requirement. My role encompassed comprehensive product design responsibilities, including user research, interaction design, and close collaboration with development teams. This 5-month project was executed from concept to launch in Q3 2024, demonstrating our ability to rapidly deliver value to our customers.
User problem
Our customers were seeking ways to maximize their savings returns with their savings account. To do, they often chasing high promotional rates saving accounts offered by competitive banks & fintech companies.
The consequence of constantly chasing promotional rates to get better returns can make people feel anxious (always on the lookout, fear of missing out), requires high effort and time (decision making, setting up a new account and meeting those requirements, i.e setup a direct deposit and automated bill payment), and feel disappointed after promotional period end (promotional rate generally last for a couple of months and then interest returns drop to their base rate, i.e a bank could offer 6% interest for six months and then after six month, the interest rate drops to 0.5%).
Our customer’s true desire is to find something that gives them a good return with minimal requirement and mental effort. A secure product that offers a stable way to save and grow their funds without having to chase promotional rates all the time, even if it means making certain trade offs (i.e providing notice when withdraw money).
Key user problem NSA need to solve
Competitive interest rates that doesn’t have an end-promotional period
Business goals
With customers moving funds to other banks for higher promotional rate. Attrition in deposit is a key problem. This ultimately led to liquidity and operation risk for the EQ Bank’s treasury team with high fluxation of funds leaving the bank and it can be difficult to cover those funds in time. Keeping deposits and customers within EQ Bank became critical to reduce attrition and operation risk. To solve this problem, we needed to come up with a solution that creates sticky deposits for the bank while still delivering value for the customer.
Key business problem NSA needs to solve
A way to provide additional time for the bank when customer withdrawing money (notice period) and have sticky deposits
Target Users
Our target users were focused on everyday savers (66% of existing customer base) who are looking for secure ways to grow their long term savings. They’re financially savvy when it comes to creating a plan, setting up a financial goal, applying simple strategies (i.e compound interest) to grow their funds based on how much they have left over they get their pay cheque.
These users are interested in the concept of saving & investing but actually doesn’t have investment products, like GICs or stocks, because of the heightened anxiety when it comes to learning how to invest, choosing right type of investments, and thinking about risk management. So, ideally these user’s are looking for something that’s easy to understand (like their saving accounts), with the benefit of good returns that’s stable and secure (like a high interest GIC), so they don’t have to chase promotional rates.
Research insights
Our thorough research phase revealed key insights that guided my design approach, from synthesizing deep, quantitative, market research from finance and analytic team to qualitative customer research from surveys and interviews:
Users feel comfortable with the idea of having money locked away as long they’re getting good rates in return as they see their long-term savings as something they don’t touch or use in the short term.
Users needed clear understanding of any specific rules or limitations upfront and generally how it works before committing to opening a new product
If there was a lock-in period (notice period) on the product, the ability to plan withdrawals in advance and know when a user will be getting the money, when they do decide to take the money out, is essential in providing psychological safety and control to their money
Users were willing to accept a 30-day notice period for withdrawals in exchange for premium interest rates 0.75% higher than standard savings accounts, creating an opportunity to introduce a product that would encourage longer-term saving behavior while offering better returns.
Based on the research, a fundamental question from user experience level is to design something that’s familiar for everyday users while leveraging features of an investment product.
Early solutions
Beside offering a product, some of the earlier exploration of potential viable solution that leverages high rate and notice period include:
Targeted account that only specific users sees, specifically who are at risk of leaving the bank
Position the product that focus on rates
A new product that that competes against other banks
…and plenty of explorations in flows, touch points, and designs to show to stakeholders possibilities and options.
After many discussions with key stakeholders, it was best to strategically position it as a new type of savings account that has two product offerings with certain tradeoffs (10 notice period for 4.5% and 30 notice period for 5.0%). From a customer’s perspective, it’ll be a new account with limited features (Add & withdrawal) money.
User flow
With two types of NSA, I mapped out a detailed user flow to determine key areas that requires design updates and new screens. As well as defining edge cases and how to respond to each scenario from experience perspective. This artifact was used extensively by multiple external teams from estimating technical effort to reviewing compliance requirements at certain flow.
Wireframes
After drafting the wireframes, I created a quick prototype and we used it to conduct some unmoderated usability test through User Testing. We tested with our existing customers to get feedback to validate or debunk some of our assumptions on product comprehension and ease of use.
Along with my research colleague, I helped in writing the questionnaire.
Design
Based on and early prototype testing, some key strategic design choices I made when designing the new NSA product experience:
Designed a clear, transparent product opening process explaining the notice period concept based on two product offering (10 days withdrawal period with 4.5% and 30 days withdrawal period with 5.00%)
Created an intuitive withdrawal notice system (letting customer know when they’ll be getting their money) to ensure transparency and reduce anxiety when withdrawing money.
Implemented clear visual indicators for pending withdrawals (as a tab) and provide easy access to see user’s withdrawal transfers and ability to “cancel” transfers should customer change their mind
Designed a minimal dashboard interfaces that’s highlighting key features and restrictions
Easy withdrawal process (with expected arrival date) and ability to cancel
Easy and fast open process (2 steps) with simplified account dashboard
Impact
The NSA launch demonstrated significant success in meeting both user needs and business objectives:
125% of target adoption rate in first quarter
320% ($850M) increase in stable deposit base within 6 months
96% customer satisfaction rating based on post-launch surveys
20% increase in average account balance compared to standard savings accounts
Contributed to meeting 9 billion milestone and reaching 500,000 customers
“The Notice Savings Account, launched mid-year, continues to act as a significant customer and deposit growth driver for EQ Bank, deepening its everyday bank value proposition” - F4 2024 earning. Read F4 2024 earnings report
User behavioral insights & learnings
Customer behavior analysis reveals an impressive 97% of users funding their accounts immediately (within 0 days), indicating excellent comprehension of the product's features and benefits. This level of understanding and quick adoption is particularly noteworthy for a novel financial product in the market.
There are 2x more customers who have 30 day NSA vs 10 day NSA, suggesting that customers are comfortable with locking away their money for longer period of time to get extra interest earnings.
Within first year, only 5% user initiated and successfully withdrawn from the account, which suggests that people are using the account as a long term saving product and fulfils the product primary intention.
