MODO: Transforming the Payment Experience in the Argentine Banking Industry
Telling a secret that is no longer secret doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, but sharing the backstage, the small details, and how a digital solution adds up to the change of digital payment habits for Argentine inhabitants is a whole different story. So that’s what I’m going to do with MODO, a solution that allows most banks to turn their home banking apps into an e-wallet without having to download an extra app.
“Now clients will be able to make QR code payments at shops, send and receive money from their cell phone contacts, without using a single banking code and no matter the kind of bank they have.” That is, broadly speaking, the information that comes up if you google it. However, to show you the b side, you should get to know the context first.
Digital Payments in Argentina
In Argentina, the use of cash to make purchases (54%) is a pain point and there weren’t any solutions for it despite the different laws that forced shops not to surcharge clients who use debit cards.
Since 2018, different fintech companies have emerged, offering solutions that boosted payment digitalization and also helped part of the population that couldn’t access the formal economy integrate into the banking system. Moreover, these companies started offering a differentiating user-centered experience regarding traditional banks (83% of those who make digital payments use traditional bank services less); thus, banks started considering them major competitors, and one way they could compete against them was by accelerating their own digital transformation.
Therefore, MODO emerged with a major goal that entailed strengthening Argentines’ habits regarding finances and payments. The tale of how it was created could be summed up as follows: 4 major Argentine banks came together to develop this e-wallet in late 2019. Then, more than 20 banks joined the project. Consulting firms, technology and design teams, and payment terminal processing companies worked hand in hand with the banks to develop a solution that would allow all banks to operate in an agile way while coexisting with each bank’s app guidelines. In addition, interbank workgroups were set up (yes, among competitors!), among which there was ongoing feedback to validate screens, designs and interactions.
We are no longer talking about 5 fintech products that millennials or centennials download, but the most traditional Argentine banks with a broader audience, which isn’t so used to handling digital apps.
Working With Users, Without Seeing Them
All this also happened in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, where contactless payments became truly necessary to prevent the virus from spreading. That’s why the teams built MODO 100% remotely. It was no easy thing, by the way.
As a designer, one of the greatest challenges was testing the screen prototypes remotely, due to the conditions imposed by the quarantine. It was the first time that I faced this sort of challenge in my career since I’d only done it in person before; and since with QR code payments users have to take part in the interaction physically, (moving the cell phone closer to scan the QR code, which wouldn’t be in a sticker but in the payment terminal instead) an extra issue was added to the task.
For the video call interactions, I had to learn how to use new software through which I could see the users interacting with the prototype in real time as well as their reactions while they were performing the task. Along with my team, we started the testing sessions with some questions regarding their buying habits with other payment apps, to later move on to the functional prototypes.
In the test scenarios we asked participants to imagine before beginning the task, we tried to specify the context in a detailed way, and we even included pictures of the till with the payment terminal. It may not have been the best solution, but working remotely allowed us to learn a bit about the users’ homes and environment. I was a spectator and got the answers to my initial questions regarding their shopping habits and their personal situation. Influenced by the context, many users sought to make purchases once a month or looked for shops that implemented contactless payments so as not to touch cash and thus avoid putting themselves and their families at risk -some family members even showed up unintentionally or we heard them during the video calls.
To enrich our understanding, we added quantitative data from external consulting firms (such as Taquion or Accenture), which collect data on the current situation of Argentines’ habits regarding banking products through surveys. Although it is a common practice, it helped us make up for the loss of richness due to the lack of one-on-one interviews with our users.
These were some of the most relevant facts:
- 3 out of 10 users state they’ve changed their food consumption habits for healthier ones during the pandemic.
- 35,7% better plan their purchases.
- 30,4% acquire products in small nearby shops.
- 83,5% used digital channels in December 2020, while in May it was 77%.
- 89% appreciate the user-friendliness in payment apps or digital banks.
- It is expected that 1 out of 4 adults will use e-wallets in 2022 in Argentina, which is similar to what is happening in the United Kingdom nowadays.
We ran across considerable changes regarding buying habits, and taking them into account in a quantifiable way allowed us to draw, along with other areas, concrete action plans to communicate and explain the use of this kind of payment method within the bank’s app.
Hybrid Products [and Experiences]
Regarding this whole payment experience and the atypical context we are going through, I would also like to highlight the importance of these new hybrid experiences between the digital and the analog world.
When the pandemic started, Ezio Manzini, a social innovation design expert, gave a talk about the role of the digital in the pandemic:
“Some of the elements that have been made visible by this crisis tell us to use the energy we have now to move towards the digital world and, at the same time, transfer it to physical interactions, therefore creating a hybrid space. That is what, at the moment, I call ‘hybrid community of place’”. Wow.
Manzini explains that these communities are the ones capable of living in the digital and physical space, and they have the advantage of being resilient and able to adapt to catastrophic situations.
I believe this new concept fits perfectly the kind of change we are undergoing as a society, which encompasses both payment and purchase experiences, and we should take it into account as design professionals. We should include the digital without losing the valuable physical interactions, either in everyday shopping exchanges or in our relationships and the communities we live in.
On the other hand, it’s important to highlight how design has gained relevance in traditional banks. From having a more esthetic role to being key to build the experience in banks’ digital transformation. Several banks even started including designers and building their own UX teams.
Moreover, I’d like to highlight two main points that will keep helping us surf the “new normal” that has brought habit changes in all the areas of everyday life:
- Although the use of digital products has increased, we should continue taking action within design teams to bridge the digital gap.
- We should share experiences related to remote testing in hybrid contexts of use (through papers, articles, talks or podcasts).
I’d like to finish off with a phrase by Manzini that sums up this atypical context we are going through (and that digital payments enable):
“It has been said that, with so much suffering, the Covid-19 crisis has also led to great behavioral changes. And these have a paradoxical nature: in this global disaster, nowadays being social means being apart from others.”
I would also like to remark that MODO and other e-wallets would have probably had a lower impact if the context had been different so, in a way, we could say these solutions arrived in Argentina just in time.
Bibliography
- Industria de pagos en la Argentina: tendencias y oportunidades, Accenture, October 2020.
- Bancos digitales y app de pagos, Consultora Taquion, Mayo 2020.
- Monitor nacional de prensa (Consultora Taquion, meses Agosto y Diciembre 2020), e Investigación entidades financieras digitales y bancos, June 2020.
- Contactless sociability and hybrid communities of places (talk). Ezio Manzini for Service Design Drinks Milan, April 2020.
- Covid-19 and social innovation: Contactless sociability and hybrid communities of place (paper). Ezio Manzini for DESIS Network, April 2020.
