#Episode03 Designing a loan App for Domestic help: A Product case

In this episode, we deep dive into a product case study in Fintech

CASE INDEX

No	*Title*	*Details*
1	About the Industry	Brief on current Industry trends, competitions, past performance and future expectations
2	About the Product	Defining vision and key information about the product
3	Case Problem Summary	Brief on the case and type of problem statement
4	Key Problems	Identifying key problems to be solved
5	Solution
5.1	Key Assumption	Assumptions of the solution
5.2	Key features	Key features to be modified or built or added for defined user persona
5.3	User Journeys	Defining user journey flows
5.4	Wireframes	Figma design link
6	Conclusion	Summarizing the case solution

1. Case Problem Summary:

The Indian lending market is maturing but financial inclusion still remains a major issue. Access to credit is digitising but the unorganised structures and lack of credit scores keeps a major chunk of the population out of the credit market.

Domestic help is one such segment. Though banking penetration and digital tools like UPI have improved the situation, lack of availability of data to measure creditworthiness remains a challenge. Hence, domestic helps lack access to credit, which otherwise could uplift their living standards and improve the economy overall.

As a Start-up, the need has been identified and surveys suggest an opportunity to build a product to meet the gap. As a Product Manager, build an MVP to achieve product-market fit.

2. About the Industry:

Industry: Digital Micro Lending products

Primarily, the Indian market is a cash transaction market. It has only been in recent years that the shift towards becoming a cashless economy happened. Private players like Paytm and government efforts like NPCI’s (National Payment Corporation of India) UPI were the early players in driving the change.

Mature firms like PineLabs and new age businesses like Lending Kart, MobiKwik, MoneyTap have built user-friendly lending products along with providing a host of other services. These fintech businesses provide loans ranging from INR 25,000 to INR 5 Cr with varying business models.

The tech driven products tend to be more user-friendly, tech-enabled approvals helping them achieve better turn around time for services. However, mature and traditional businesses have a strong advantage of the ground-level network helping them maintain a robust supply chain.

Alternative data is another key feature shaping the industry. Competitors have emerged from non-financial businesses leveraging technology for managing risks in situations where credit data is not available.

Lack of credit information still remains a major challenge in developing nations. Overall, there is still a large under-served segment, problems of which provide an opportunity for products for closing the gap.

3. About the Product:

In the lending market industry, the start-up shall launch a product to solve for the given problem statement.

Product Name: Dhani (Mobile App - Android)

Position Statement:

For domestic helps in India who struggle to manage cash flows for household, family and daily expenses, Dhani is a Fintech app that provides micro loans with easy borrowing and repayment facilities to uplift their personal financial situations.

The app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store.

4. Key Problems:

There are three key problems for the domestic help segment the app intends to address by building features:

1. Access to digital banking: Lack of access to online services and digital means of banking keeps the segment away from credit facilities. In the current market, users of the segment need to rely on unregistered money lenders.

2. Trust: Lack of means to prove the creditworthiness demands an alternative source for managing the financial risks associated with under-served segments

3. Financial literacy: Unplanned borrowing and unplanned expenses due to lack of financial literacy and basic financial management skills remain a major pain-point for the segment across the geographies

5. Solution:

5.1 Assumptions:

The product intends to serve in Mumbai for launching MVP and later scale it for the other regions of the Indian market.
Initial target customers are expected to have a smartphone, UPI app or a joint or independent bank account
The product shall be developed in two phases, with MVP being phase-1 and post-MVP shall be phase-2
The backend process of getting a credit score from employers involve a quantitative and qualitative assessment by contacting the employer

Persona:

Name: Bhavna

Age: 32 years

Children: 2

No of clients: 5 (4 Major 1 Minor – in terms of efforts and time)

Monthly Earnings: INR 24,000

Shifts: Morning and Evening

Owns a smartphone: Yes

Has UPI account: Yes

Languages known: Hindi and Marathi

Developing a smartphone Android app with credit access to domestic help with credit worthiness calculated from employers’ feedback.

As a part of the solution, a host of features are decided to be developed, with phase wise launch of the product. The phase 1 is the MVP while phase 2 is planned with more than basic features.

There are three key problems the app intends to address by building these features:

2. Trust: Lack of means to prove the creditworthiness demands an alternative source for managing the financial risks associated with under-served segments

3. Financial literacy: Unplanned borrowing and unplanned expenses due to lack of financial literary and basic financial management skills remain a major pain-point for the segment across the geographies

5.3 App Features:

Feature 1: Online KYC

1.1 Upload documents (MVP)

1.2 Video Recording KYC (MVP)

Feature 2: Adding Bank details

2.1 UPI Activation (MVP)

2.2 Manual addition of bank details (phase 2)

Feature 3: Getting a credit score through referral

3.1 Refer your employer to get the credit score (MVP)

Feature 4: Applying for a loan through the app

Feature 5: Multi-lingual option

5.1 English, Hindi as part of MVP and in the next phase regional language support to be provided

Feature 6: EMI schedules

6.1 View all completed and upcoming EMI payments (MVP)

Feature 7: WhatsApp integrations

7.1 WhatsApp notifications for payment reminders, complaint support, Conversational KYC (phase-2)

Feature 8: Customer support

8.1 Customer support on email (MVP)

8.2 WhatsApp integration for customer support (phase -2)

Feature 9: Training flash cards on financial planning (Phase-2)

5.4 User Journeys

APPLICATION TO LOAN USER JOURNEY