UX DESIGN, PRODUCT AND BRAND STRATEGYDesigning Investec’s award-winning savings offering that attracted billions in pounds
When Investec was in desperate need to overhaul its costly, outdated, digital savings offering, I designed a multi-award winning, scalable platform and cohesive design system that attracted billions in just two years. Solving for full self-servicing allowed Investec to dramatically reduce operational costs and offer savings accounts at a competitive rate.
The challenge
Investec had traditionally relied on mass-market savings accounts to generate capital for its bespoke lending, banking, and investment solutions. However, these savings products were a cobbled-together mess of legacy systems with no consistent design, making maintenance and updates a painfully slow, costly, and error-prone affair. To make matters worse, Investec's savings offering was housed within its private client platform, using the same high-touch client support as its private banking customers.
With such high operational and servicing costs, Investec struggled to offer competitive rates and attract the deposits needed for growth.
My approach
As the UX Lead, I designed a scalable banking-as-a-service platform with its own servicing model to replace Investec's outdated savings offering and dramatically reduce operational costs.
Upfront research identified clear differentiators: full transparency across all interactions (avoiding hidden fees or contractual limitations), an end-to-end digital product from application to opening and closure, and a focus on immediacy, allowing clients to apply, open, and fund an account within minutes.
+800%
A simple, fully automated sign up process provided clarity and the level of control that users were craving.
Full transparency, avoiding jargon, and implementing Live Chat meant that users were 9 times more likely to complete the process.
And the ability to open their account on the spot was the wow factor that left a great first impression.
My approach
I crafted consistent, scalable design solutions grounded in extensive user research and rapid testing. Embracing iteration, I led co-creation workshops to generate design and business solutions that unlocked opportunities and made Investec's offering compelling in the market.
As Head of Design, I led the creation of a bespoke design system and language guidelines, introducing cohesiveness and efficiency. I fostered a culture of continuous improvement driven by research and analytics, liaised with operations to identify any issues where clients couldn’t self-serve, and expanded the offering to include easy access, fixed-rate, and 90-day notice accounts.
+26 pp
Full self-servicing dramatically reduced operational costs and significantly increased appeal and retention.
From application to account closure and anything in-between (whether tax certificates, address changes, interest frequency, or opening a new account), I built a simple, clear, and scalable platform that empowered users and led to a 26 percent points higher retention than previous offers.
–96%
Real-time monitoring of live chat queries in conjunction with ongoing testing allowed us to quickly react and keep operational costs down.
For example, when some users struggled to understand how to pay into their new savings account, I added a call out on their account overview which reduced live chat queries by 96%.
The outcome
+£4bn
In 2020, Investec launched the first savings product on the new platform, which proved an instant success. The modular and scalable design allowed us to rapidly launch two follow-up products. After just two years, Investec’s new mass-market savings platform had attracted several billion pounds in deposits.
Iterative improvements based on analytics, ongoing user research, and client feedback continue to refine the offering while keeping costs low. Investec has since won numerous key industry and consumer awards for its simple, transparent, and competitive savings products.
