Financial Review
Bud Financial
Contents
#Overview 1Introduction 2User Research
3Personas 4Pain Points 5Solution
6Final Design 7Conclusion
Intro
TotallyMoney aimed to integrate Bud’s Open Banking platform to enhance credit access for underserved users. The goal was to help users understand their credit positions, identify areas for improvement, and boost their attractiveness to lenders.
Challenge
To make this integration effective, TotallyMoney needed insights on leveraging Bud's technology for a streamlined financial management system, within a single, insights-driven dashboard.
Solution
The proposed integration of Bud's Open Banking API with the TotallyMoney app required prototyping to illustrate how this technology would enhance the customer experience through enriched data and personalised features.
1. Introduction

The team at TotallyMoney were focused on building a credit score service tailored for underserved users. This required a careful approach to affordability, with a core mission to help users understand the factors that made them attractive to lenders.

TotallyMoney approached Bud to explore how the Open Banking technology could be integrated with their app, aiming to offer customers a better product. The goal was to demonstrate how this technology could enhance users’ understanding of their affordability, improve credit scores, and provide personalised insights on barriers to better offers.
2. User Research

To gain insights into TotallyMoney's user base, six individuals were interviewed to explore their methods for tracking daily incomes and expenses, as well as their opinions on the current app.

Zoom calls facilitated these interviews, allowing for a closer examination of user interactions with the app. A structured questionnaire was developed, featuring questions such as:
  1. What method did you use to record daily expenses and income before using this app?
  2. What did you like or dislike about your previous method?
  3. How satisfied were you with the app?
  4. Which features did you find helpful, and which frustrated you?
  5. What changes or additional features would enhance your experience?
3. Personas

By analysing questionnaire responses, two primary personas were developed (shown below). Each persona identified specific pain points and expectations, offering insights into how open banking technology from Bud could potentially address their needs.
Sarah - The Household Finance Tracker
Sarah - The Household Finance Tracker
“ I’m so busy taking care of my family, I forget the little things, like bills and expenses. I just need something simple to help me stay on track. ”
Profile
  • She is a housewife with three kids.
  • Struggles with remembering and tracking daily expenses.
  • Often forgets to pay bills on time, resulting in penalty fees.
  • Wants an app to record expenses and income in real-time and provide reminders for upcoming payments.
Pains
  • Too busy to remember all the expenses.
  • She always forgets to pay bills on time, which results in a penalty fee.
  • Finance register that she maintains always gets lost or destroyed.
Goals
  • Maintain proper record of her income and expenses.
  • Set reminder for upcoming expenses.
  • Share the income and expense with her husband.
Solutions
An open banking solution could have streamlined income and expense tracking, automated reminders, and enabled secure data sharing.
Requirements
Research indicated that users like Sarah would benefit from features providing automated tracking and reminders, leading to the development of user-friendly functionalities that enhance security and accessibility.
Outcomes
Implementing these features would improve Sarah's financial management, helping her stay on top of expenses while supporting better collaboration with her partner.
Abdul - The Simplified Spender
Abdul - The Simplified Spender
“ I just want an easy way to track my money so I can stay on top of my budget and keep my parents updated without the hassle. ”
Profile
  • He is a college student.
  • Lives away from parents for studies.
  • Needs to share monthly income and expenses with parents for budgeting.
  • Wants an app to record daily expenses and income and easily share a financial summary with parents.
Pains
  • He does not keep any record of his income and expenses, which results in confusion at month end.
  • He finds it difficult to share his income and expenses with his parents.
Goals
  • Track his money.
  • Share his monthly expenses report to his parents.
  • Know how much money is remaining at the end of the month.
Solutions
Open banking could have supported him by providing real-time balance updates, spending categorisation, and shareable reports.
Requirements
Research revealed that users like Abdul required easy-to-use tools to minimise manual entry, prompting a focus on intuitive design for balance updates and categorisation.
Outcomes
Incorporating these features would give Abdul greater control over his finances while ensuring efficient communication of his spending habits to his parents.
4. Pain Points

The user research and persona development revealed the diverse needs and challenges of TotallyMoney’s potential users. Product design and development teams collaborated in brainstorming sessions to identify and refine key pain points.

As captured below, these brainstorming sessions highlighted issues such as the need for improved financial wellbeing, better credit ratings, and optimised debt management. Insights were organised around user types, problems, solutions, and performance metrics, beginning with the categorisation of users into Copers, Planners, and Strugglers, each with distinct financial needs and behaviours.
Rough Flow Diagram and Integration Concept
Rough Flow Diagram and Integration Concept
The following pain points were identified:Miro
  1. Limited Awareness of Features
    Users, both new and existing, were often unaware of all the app's features, which limited their engagement and utilisation of its full functionality.
  2. Unclear Balance Tracking
    Many users expressed difficulty in tracking their remaining balance or understanding their savings progress, which created a barrier to effective budget management.
  3. Complicated Income and Expense Entry
    The interface for adding income and expenses was confusing to most users, making it challenging to perform this fundamental task and detracting from the app’s core purpose.
  4. Difficulty Tracking Category-Specific Spending
    Users wanted insights into specific expense categories, such as weekly spending on items like food or transport, but the app did not provide this functionality.
  5. Lack of Timely Notifications
    The absence of notifications for upcoming expenses, income, or daily records left users unprepared and unable to stay on top of their finances efficiently.
  6. Limited Customisation of Budget Categories
    Users wanted more flexibility to create and personalise budget categories, but the app offered only a limited set of pre-defined options, reducing its relevance to their unique financial habits.
  7. Incomplete Expense History View
    The app did not provide a comprehensive or easily accessible history of past expenses and income, making it difficult for users to review and analyse spending trends over time.
  8. Absence of Goal-Setting Tools
    Many users expressed a desire to set financial goals within the app, such as saving for a specific purpose, but found no feature supporting this.
  9. Difficulty Understanding Transaction Summaries
    Transaction summaries lacked clarity, with confusing labels and unclear categorisation, which left users uncertain about their financial status.
Addressing these issues would enable the app to better align with the needs of users like Sarah and Abdul.
5. Solution

To address the identified pain points, another series of brainstorming sessions were conducted. These sessions focused on exploring solutions that aligned with TotallyMoney’s mission to improve financial wellbeing, especially for underserved groups.

The objectives of the brainstorming sessions were to:
The team initiated discussions by revisiting the two identified user personas and analysing the primary financial management needs highlighted in the user research. This process was followed by generating a list of potential solutions for each identified pain point.

Based on these discussions, solutions were prioritised into three main categories: Awareness, Resilience, and Growth, which led to the creation of a flow diagram (shown below) to conceptualise how these features could be effectively integrated into the app.
Feature Flow diagram
Feature Flow diagram
The following list outlined key features, implementation strategies, and the value they would bring to users, directly addressing the previously identified pain points.
Feature
Description
Pain Points Addressed
Implementation
Spending Tracker with Notifications
Users expressed a need for improved visibility into spending habits. A spending tracker with real-time notifications was conceptualised to allow users, like Sarah and Abdul, to monitor expenses as they occurred, helping them avoid overspending.
Limited awareness of features and unclear balance tracking.
A simplified user interface (UI) for tracking daily expenses was proposed, with optional notifications for significant or unusual spending.
Customisable Budget Categories & Goals
Many users, particularly those managing complex household budgets or tight student finances, requested flexibility in categorising spending. This would enable the app to better align with unique financial situations.
Limited customization of budget categories and difficulty tracking category-specific spending.
Options for creating and labelling custom budget categories, setting specific monthly spending limits, and receiving alerts upon approaching set limits were included in the design.
Debt Repayment Tracker and Credit Improvement Tips
As debt management and credit building were essential for financial resilience, a tracker for loan repayments combined with credit score improvement tips was prioritised.
Difficulty understanding transaction summaries and a lack of tools for financial growth.
A dedicated section to track debt repayment schedules and display progress through a scoring system was proposed. Bud’s Open Banking API would support personalised tips for credit improvement based on financial behaviour.
Emergency Fund Setup Wizard
Users highlighted the need for guidance in building a savings buffer. An emergency fund setup wizard was conceptualised to help users allocate a portion of their budget toward emergency savings.
Absence of goal-setting tools and need for financial stability.
A guided flow for users to select an amount and timeline to reach a savings goal was outlined, with visual progress tracking and motivational reminders.
Long-Term Financial Goal Planner
The app would benefit from a tool that enabled users to set and track long-term goals, such as saving for retirement or major purchases, which was especially valuable for users at the Growth stage.
Absence of goal-setting tools and desire for long-term financial planning.
This feature included options to set individual financial goals and link accounts or savings options directly to these goals, with periodic reminders and projections to maintain motivation.
Investment Insights and High-Interest Savings Suggestions
Many users expressed a desire for an intuitive way to learn about investments. Integrating educational content and savings options was proposed to support users interested in wealth-building.
Desire for wealth-building knowledge and lack of educational resources.
A “Learn” section within the app was suggested to provide insights into investment basics and high-yield accounts, with tailored savings product recommendations.
Contextual Alerts for Financial Health Checks
Users valued timely notifications that would help them stay on track with financial plans. Alerts for bills, subscriptions, and spending patterns were proposed to increase retention and trust.
Lack of timely notifications and need for financial health monitoring.
Bud’s technology would support real-time alerts based on spending patterns, upcoming bills, or unusual activity, encouraging users to review and adjust their financial habits.
6. Final Design

The final designs were developed with consideration of Bud's existing technology, ensuring that TotallyMoney's distinctive branding was seamlessly integrated into its reliable Open Banking framework. Many of the pain points identified during user research had already been addressed within Bud's framework, ensuring a smooth implementation.

Due to the impending deadline for the meeting with TotallyMoney, there was not enough time to do low-fidelity wireframing, requiring a shift directly to the prototyping stage. The UI screens and prototype were created in Figma to showcase how Bud's technology could benefit TotallyMoney. This prototype facilitated user testing and provided valuable insights for further enhancements to the overall user experience.

Please click the link below to see the prototype in action.

Prototype
TotallyMoney app with Bud Open Banking integration
7. Conclusion

The project concluded successfully, with TotallyMoney selecting Bud as their Open Banking partner. This partnership demonstrated the potential to harness live open banking data, integrating it with credit reports, eligibility information, and TotallyMoney's product data. In an environment where inflation reached its highest level in 30 years, impacting millions by eroding their savings and increasing the risk of missed payments, this collaboration aimed to help customers better understand their affordability and what makes them appealing to lenders.

Working on this project from start to finish provided invaluable learning opportunities. Key takeaways included:
Overall, the experience underscored the importance of user-centric design and the value of collaboration in addressing complex financial challenges.