Description:

Kiwibank is the largest New Zealand owned bank who are repositioning themselves to attract and retain a new progressive type of customer – through a brand-led transformation across culture, product and technology.

The brand strategy 'enabling Kiwi to thrive' and refreshed identity are inspired by the Harakeke plant – the Te Ao Māori metaphor of a thriving community. The center shoots are the rito – the new, growing generation, our future with the surrounding outer leaves representing knowledge and wisdom - the nurturing parents and grandparents.

In every aspect of their experience, Kiwibank are looking to deliver customer-centered solutions that powerfully and authentically express the new brand strategy.

Kiwibank launched a series of interactive digital home loan tools designed to better support a number of distinct audience segments based on their specific context and needs.

Shifting focus from affordability to ambition.
Home loan calculators are a high use toolset that a range of audiences use to understand their financial parameters and options.

The typical experience of calculators is centered on what a user can afford, rather than what they want to achieve.

We challenged this convention and designed calculators that better assist audiences to make confident decisions, empowering customers to self-navigate and determine how Kiwibank could help them to realise their ambitions and achieve their goals.

Generating audience insight.
In-depth interviews were undertaken with potential home buyers, owners and mortgage brokers, to understand the motivations, needs and preferred interaction models of people using home loan calculators throughout their decision making process.

Segmenting audiences by mindset.
Research concluded that differences based on age, location or financial position were not as consistently significant as the motivations for using the digital tool – which emerged as a key dimension that set user needs apart.

We identified five segments with specific motivations and mindsets - all of whom had distinctive requirements and needs.

Generic calculators don’t account for variables such as whether it's your first house, next house, investment property or that you want to restructure your finances.

Defining an overarching purpose.
The key function of calculators is to screen, educate and trigger a contact. These are true from the perspective of both a potential buyer and the bank’s – and were used as a decision framework throughout the design process.

Human-centered yet conversion focussed.
Kiwibanks new home loan calculators feature a natural language interface to understand the less-variable aspects of a user's position - such as household income, debt levels and composition.

The second part of the interaction uses sliders as a mechanism to explore variables and scenarios that could shift, allowing users to understand their options and potential impacts.

Educational prompts are surfaced throughout the experience so that the user understands any high level implications throughout scenarios without having to leave the calculator interface.

Duplicating detail in more than one scenario allows users to transition through different constructs and compare different options for how they might achieve their goals and determine the best pathway to get there.