The first e-wallet in Suriname — fintech app design
How to introduce a mobile payment system in Suriname? From user research to development.
Client
GWAP, Suriname
Date
2021
My role
- Competitor analysis
- User interviews
- Prototyping
- User testings
- UI/UX design
Intro
Before starting the project I did not much know of Suriname, a country neighboring Venezuela and Guyana… Luckily the Surinamese client I worked with had support with the government, strong bond with store owners and were very helpful by identifying the local resources and challenges we should tackle in priority. When creating a mobile payment system that is meant to be used across the entire country, it is necessary that regulators of the country and stores are on board to help with the legal side of this new payment method and adoption rate of the app. Also, I made sure to get to know the situation in Suriname by myself methodically to reduce the effect of bias into the project, from the perspective of our client. I hope this article can help you approach a problem in a country which you are not familiar with!
In Paramaribo the capital city of Suriname, only one out of two stores accept card payments. It is thus, common for Surinamese people to carry a lot of cash. Unfortunately this increases their risk of getting robbed or simply misplace money. A solution to counter these risks is to introduce digital money in the country so that people can simply use their phone to pay stores and easily send money to each other. Research show that when introducing a mobile payment system in a country, there should be high customization which explains why mobile payment apps differ so much from one country to another.
How can we build a mobile payment system adequate to the needs of Surinamese people?
GWAP will be one of the first e-wallets introduced in Suriname. A user could go to a store, top-up her account by giving the store cash. The store gets a commission fee for topping up and the user gets Surinamese dollars in her GWAP account and loyalty points. The user can pay with her phone at any GWAP accepting stores by scanning the store’s GWAP QR code and entering the due amount. In the future, users will be able to buy online purchases through GWAP such as buying flight tickets as online shopping is very limited in Suriname.
First, in-depth interviews of potential Surinamese users were conducted with a competitor analysis. Based on these findings we have created a prototype with which was tested new potential users. Then, we have moved to design and development. I am the product designer and user researcher of this project.
1. User interviews
Constrained with limited time and because we were in the explorative stage of the project we conducted 5 user interviews of one to two hours each to gather some initial insights on how people pay in Suriname. It was made sure that there were potential e-wallet users that use GWAP to pay stores and potential store owners that accept GWAP payments. We call them consumers and merchants respectively.
Findings consumer side:
- Tracking money: it is tough to keep count of monthly expenses because of lost receipts, and the hassle of writing down everything on a notebook.
- You never really know if you are carrying enough cash when grocery shopping. By the time you realize you don’t have enough money, the closest bank is too far (even in the capital ATMs at the bank are rare and long queues are common place) and closes early.
- Everyone has a phone and uses Facebook and Whatsapp to be conencted to family and friends. SMS are not used.
Findings form the small business side (we had a bakery owner and a stationery/alcohol store owner):
- Paying suppliers in cash is very stressful because robberies have happened before, in the store and the truck.
- A bank transfer in Suriname takes 3 days. It is frustrating that large amounts of money are frozen when merchant have to operate their stores.
- Another concern for cash is hygiene. Merchants would less worried with germs with digital payments.
Miscellaneous:
- Existing e-wallets in Suriname are Uni5pay and Mope but interviewees don’t have an account (except for one merchant) and are said to be impractical. Many people in Suriname do not have a bank account and these apps are linked to a certain bank. Additionally, the transfers take one to 3 days, are not instant and you still need to go to your bank to make a transfer.
2. Competitor analysis
Introducing digital payment in a developing country comes with a set of challenges: limited financial infrastructure and limited Internet coverage. We focused the competitor analysis on successful companies in developing countries. Secondary data was gathered mostly by labelling reviews from Google play and the Apple store, and with online research papers, articles and news.
A few research papers document and compare the success and failure of mobile payments in developing countries. In a nutshell, initial product offering should target a large pain point of the target population. Launching a copied mobile money system for any of the following reasons without looking at the actual needs of the user, lowers rate of adoption:
- The product worked well in other countries.
- It is the easiest to deploy from a technology perspective.
- Regulators determine what the population should have access to .
Instead, mobile money operators should find the intersection of problems they can solve and those whose solution would be of significant value to the customer base they wish to attract. This product set should be developed by deep research into the customer base and look into the barriers to consumers’ use of existing formal financial services.
3. Prototype
We have identified possible use cases of mobile payments through a user journey map and have created the first version of GWAP e-wallet.
We decided to go for the following features that seem to be the most in need:
- Pay a store by scanning a QR code with Surinamese dollars and GRPs (loyalty points within GWAP)
- Look for stores that accept GWAP payments and top-ups.
- Review expenses and money coming in your account to track cash flows monthly.
5 potential consumers from Suriname were selected fo a one hour online moderated user testing: 3 men and 2 women, tech savvy between 20 and 35 year-old.
The Usability Problems uncovered during Testing:
- The Payment process should be as easy, straightforward as possible.
- Transaction Overview needs to be clearer.
- GSP needs to be explained well.
The Positive Aspects of the Prototype:
- “It is more than a eWallet”.
- The budgeting is a positive extra feature.
- Users are looking forward not to carry cash anymore.
- Users welcome the GSP system.
- Structure of the Landing Page has been understood by all users.
By a few weeks, we have advanced quite far into how we imagine what an adequate e-wallet would look like in Suriname, with primary data from interviews and user test feedback and secondary data research. Because agency work is all about getting things done fast we proceed with development right away to get the first version of GWAP in store.
4. Development
Agile Scrum
We follow the Agile Scrum framework, a methodology to facilitate projects. for our projects. For those not familiar with Scrum, here is a quick intro. Once the prototype has been tested, the product owner starts populating the product backlog. The product backlog is a list of features that the user should be able to do in your product. It is written in a user perspective to make sure we are building a product that is based on what the user needs. But the client and other stakeholders have their say too in the process. Altogether, they decide what features need to be prioritized and build first. Once we have a first version of the backlog it is time for the development team to design and develop. Usually the designer works 2 weeks in advance then hands over the mockups, high fidelity wireframes and design system to the developers. The developers take two weeks to build what has been designed. The work in progress is shared with the client who provides feedback, and the whole two-week process repeats until the end of the projects. This incremental process enables for the client and other stakeholders to make changes in the product while developing and show them the work early on to know what is happening. Finally, working in scrum improves the quality of work since what has already been developed might be subject for improvement and iteration is possible. The amount of work needed for both designers and developers is estimated every two weeks.
GWAP
A GWAP admin panel, an app for merchants & store employees and an app for consumers were designed and built to be able to support GWAP payments and top-ups.
The final product of GWAP addresses the usability problems encountered during the user tests:
- A clearer explanation of the GRP loyalty system by finding information next to the GRP balance.
- Instead of letting user purchase with GRPs and Surinamese dollars combined, they need to chose one of them.
- After entering the amount that the user needs to pay, the button title is changed to “Pay” so that she understands that the amount she entered is final and money will be taken out of her account.
- In the transaction history, the user can look up expenses and money by period of time with sorting and filtering options to make the overview simpler.
GWAP is now live on Apple store and Google play. In the meanwhile the next phase of GWAP is already being planned with the questions in mind: How can we encourage users to use the GRP loyalty points? How can users discover new stores and get discounts on GWAP?
About me
To view more of my work, go here: https://medium.com/@gwenndesignMy portofolio: https://www.gwennlepechoux.com/
I work at Lizard Global, a web-development agency based in Malaysia and in the Netherlands. We provide data-driven digital solutions to partners from a wide range of industries. Check out more about Lizard here: https://www.lizard.global/
