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Jusan Bank

Jusan (ex. Jýsan Bank) — is one of the biggest banks in Kazakhstan (B1 according to Moody's).
It was named as the best Kazakhstani bank by the “Banking Awards – 2021”. It has more than 110+ branches in 20 regions of Kazakhstan.


We were invited as the specialists in product design and strategy consultants. So, the business wanted to reshape the concept of their business, i.e. to become more than just a bank, but a lifestyle organisation. At that time they already had a number of services, such as financial services, insurance, investment, marketplace, business banking, travel services.

Overview

Our task was to redesign their existing website and unite all the services under “one roof”.
That said, we had to create a website that will represent whole ecosystem and would be flexible enough for new services to be added. My responsibilities included primary and secondary research, UI design and prototyping. My team-mates were commited to do the rest.

Problem

The problem at that point was that Jusan already had the mobile app that was representing all the features of the ecosystem, however the website was not close to that concept. Each
product and service, had their own, separate website with own styling and tech stack. Moreover, departments were disconected from each other and developed their websites independly.

Research

To research current and potential consumers, we run a survey on how people interact
with their primary banks. We received more than 130 answers in Kazakh and Russian languages; conducted 10 interviews with the people from different age and social groups; reviewed more than 20 reports and research papers; explored more than 30 companies in terms of their design decisions, business models and structure. The main findings were:

  • 80% are not going to change the bank.
    Due to the fact that it is easier to make transfers within one bank

  • ~80% of those studied are Kaspi customers
    Halyk is in second place and then the rest of the banks

  • ~90% are not going to change the current bank
    But when choosing a bank, the main criteria are a convenient application/website, favorable conditions and a developed ecosystem

  • Some are ready to switch if there are more favorable conditions
    Including international transfers and higher bonuses

  • Most often people come in for payments and an online store
    But they use a bank card most often as the main payment instrument

  • About a quarter of people consider queues at branches to be the main problem
    The lack of other currencies other than tenge and high interest rates on loans are also considered a problem

In order to understand what is going on in the of finance and lifestyle organisations and what trends are there we went through number of reports and research papers by McKinsey, Accenture, PwC, Bain&Company, and KPMG.

Particularly, according to the “2020 Banking Consumer Study” by Accenture and PwC’s “2019 Consumer Digital Banking Survey”, we found out that the number of people that open for innovations and something new is growing.

Furthemore, from the “The ecosystem playbook: Winning in a world of ecosystems” by McKinsey it was determined that the strategic benefits of ecosystems are:

  • Ecosystems lower customer acquisition costs.

  • Ecosystems provide access to data and opportunities to monetize it.

  • Ecosystems enhance customer relationships and retention.

  • Ecosystems provide valuation upsides and help maintain competitiveness.

The Process

With all the information we gathered we started to ideate on the ideas around the ecosystem building and what approach to choose. Even though our task was simply redesign the existing website and create a unified website for all the services and departments of the bank, we — as usual — dig much deeper.