Ant Bank is Alibaba’s inaugural digital bank of Hong Kong, providing a wide range of banking services overseas. Ant Bank provides consumer and corporate 24/7 banking services solely utilising digital channels
(i.e. branchless).
This project aimed at creating the smoothest digital onboard experience for the High Interest Rate Account, where customers can transfer money in-and-out anytime, anywhere.
An advantage of the Ant Bank was Alibaba's existing, popular e-wallet application called AlipayHK, which enables users to do small value transaction (daily limit equivalent to ~USD600). Since Alipay's launch in 2017, it acquired 2 millions of weekly active users. That is to say, about 1 in 3 Hong Kong people use AlipayHK on a regular basis.
While Ant Bank had its standalone application, to create synergy with the existing payment business to maximise both convenience for customers and brand exposure, a second gateway for users was created via a Ant Bank "Mini App" built in AlipayHK.
Although e-wallet is a handy payment tool, it does not contain any other related financial services and the money stored in the wallet will not accumulate any interest. We turned this "weakness" into a leverage, with the Ant Bank features embedded in AlipayHK, enabling the over 2 million users to open Ant Bank accounts, receive interest in the e-wallet, and directly use the high interest rate account for payment. Now customers can spend what they earn - all at the same platform.
Customers need to top up their e-wallet frequently when it runs out of money, but they need to suffer from additional charges (1-2%) when using other payment options in AlipayHK. But with an Ant Bank account, their high-interest savings can be used to pay offline and TaoBao (biggest e-commerce platform in China). No more top-up hassles and additional charges.
Digital bank was a nascent initiative back then. Many of the rules were new, so clarifications and clearances from the regulator (Hong Kong Monetary Authority) and independent accessors (for quality control purposes) were needed from time to time. To control the cost of this highly complex project, the team used the Agile method at an enterprise level while using the waterfall method for development.
The best-in-class UX should apply to the user journey, and be coherent with other user scenarios, as well as equivalent applications of the same company for different country markets.
Every field we ask users to fill increases friction. So a rule of thumb to gain and keep customers is to get rid of as many fields
as possible.
Clear guidance and crisp communication reduce risks and errors for users. The concision gives customers a peace
of mind.
All essential features including account opening, security and settings, deposit and payment features were completed, tested and launched in September 2020. Over 50,000 users were acquired within the first month of launch.
