Revolutionizing Digital Banking: SberBank Online

Embracing Emotional Design in Mobile Banking

The SberBank Online Design Team has taken a unique approach to mobile banking, aiming to provide a human touch to their digital services. The team has focused on creating positive emotional experiences for their clients, making banking more personal and engaging. This has been achieved through the introduction of colorful postcards and stickers to accompany money transfers, and special animation screens to entertain clients during longer transactions. The app also features personalized designs for the main and welcome screens, depending on the client's location and time of day.

What sets SberBank Online apart from other banking apps is its commitment to breaking the conventional banking app pattern. The app offers almost all banking products of the largest Russian bank online, along with lifestyle features such as chats, stories, and a catalogue. The team believes that User Emotions (UE) are the new must-have for all digital product designs, and their app reflects this philosophy.

The app was designed using After Effect CC, Illustrator CC, Adobe Photoshop CC, and Sketch. The emotional design elements were built using Swift for iOS and Kotlin for Android. The team also utilized targeting and geotags to deliver personalized designs to the right customers. The app requires iOS 10.0 or Android 10.0 and above.

The SberBank Online team has seen significant success with their approach. For example, customers who send money transfers with stickers and postcards do so 33% more frequently, and the overall amount of money sent is 10% larger. In the year when personalization was introduced, the app ranked in the top three most downloaded apps in Russia's App Store, following WhatsApp and Instagram.

The team faced challenges in the design process, particularly with long loading times in the app. To address this, they introduced a cute animated terminal with blushing cheeks to replace the standard white loading screen. This creative solution turned a potential negative into a positive, resulting in an increase in 5-star ratings for the app's design.

The innovative approach of the SberBank Online Design Team has not gone unnoticed. In 2021, the design was awarded Silver in the A' Mobile Technologies, Applications and Software Design Award. This prestigious award recognizes top-of-the-line, creative, and professionally remarkable designs that demonstrate outstanding expertise and innovation. The SberBank Online app is a shining example of how emotional design can revolutionize the user experience in digital banking.