Endowus

Designing a recurring investment feature

BACKGROUND

Endowus is a digital investing platform with over US$4B of assets under management. It provides expert advice and curated access to funds and private markets. As it scales, the organisation aspires to develop new capabilities to help clients invest cash and pension funds conveniently for long-term benefits.

MY ROLE

As a product designer on the user engagement squad, I led the design of products and features that enhance the investment journey to drive retention and growth. For this specific feature, I owned the end-to-end process from initial strategy to delivery and launch.

Context

Why build a recurring investment feature at all?

As a wealth management platform with a focus on long-term investing, the inclusion of recurring investment features is crucial in assisting clients in making regular contributions towards their financial goals. This functionality also benefits users by allowing them to navigate short-term fluctuations and concentrate on building wealth through sustainable growth.

Objectives

To kick the project off, I worked in close collaboration with the wider product team to align and set key objectives. These are set at both the product level and business level so that we have a good understanding of both the immediate requirements and overarching direction as a business.

Business Level

Reduce customer churn and increase retention

Drive recurring revenue and increase assets under management

Position the platform as an automated investing companion

Product Level

Extend recurring investment controls and options

Integrate feature into existing goal-based investing journeys

Promote and encourage users to take up recurring investments

Assessing the current state

To gain a better understanding of the current state and previous efforts, I began by evaluating the existing UI of the recurring investments feature. A rudimentary version was live but presented several issues due to technical constraints and limited capabilities when it was built.

Key Problems

Key issues raised include the inability to set different amounts for recurring investments, restrictions to a monthly frequency, inability to set end dates and no explanation of how it benefits users.

Competitive research

To understand how this recurring feature will stand in comparison to other wealth management and investing products that offer the same capabilities, I conducted extensive competitor research to mark out their implementations and understand the landscape. A comparison was made based on the level of customisation allowed and the overall feature set and effectiveness in solving long-term investing needs.

Beyond that, I also collaborated with teams to analyse non-financial applications with repeating time-sensitive controls such as calendars, in order to better understand common design patterns and interactions.

Gaining insights

To better understand the pain points the users had, user research was conducted and I looked into the feedback to distil key themes to solve for. With the help of collaborators such as the CX team that had close relationships with clients, the feedback came from users who were savvy with the product and able to articulate their pain points. A few of the prioritised insights are shown below.

01

Users have difficulty understanding the benefits of recurring investments and how it affects their financial journey

02

Users find it challenging to make manual investments periodically without reminders

03

Lack of fine grained control and customisation that is tailored to the user’s investing habits

04

Users are often undecided about the recurring amount and how to begin

Diving into the journey

As this feature is part of a larger goal-based investing ethos that is central to the app, I worked with the product and engineering teams to review the main user journeys. This helps to identify opportunities, manage cross-domain dependencies and ensure that the solution fits into the existing application.

Explorations

To discover the right solution that will accurately address the user problems at hand and meet business requirements, a set of basic directions was first defined to guide the exploration process. The key directions revolve around how the controls should be displayed. A single page layout would be the most straightforward UI for instance, but nested or isolated approaches may offer better navigation and reduce clutter.

Some additional ideas were also considered during exploration. Suggested investment amounts and projections are notable approaches that could potentially demonstrate the value of long-term investing to new users.

Key Directions

Single Page Layout

Toggles & Accordions

Nested

Isolated Journeys

Additional Considerations

Suggested Investment Amounts

Investment Projections

Language and Copy

Confirmation and Validation

Evaluations and decisions

With a number of explorations in place and a better understanding of the directions the project can take, I further developed the evaluation process to guide decision-making. A set of key criteria helped the team rank each solution and understand the implications objectively to close in on a final design.

Primary Evaluations

Ease of Navigation
Level of Cognitive Load
Clarity and Structure of Input Fields
Error Handling Capabilities

Secondary Evaluations

Scalability
Business Impact
Engineering Capabilities
Regulations

Assembling the final solution

With a better idea of the tradeoffs and benefits of each solution, I led the team to converge and align on the final solution. Nested controls in an L2 configuration turned out to be the sweet spot as it effectively reduced clutter, provided a clear hierarchy for information input and reduced engineering effort by integrating existing design patterns. The main elements are marked out below in detail.

Integration

Once the main piece of the recurring investment journey had been established, the next phase of the project was to mark out all states and flows in preparation for handoff and integration into the application.

Elements such as input validation, suggested amounts and saved recurring investment preferences are also added to complete the journey.

Invest Journey

Suggested Investment Amount Journey

Manage Recurring Investment Journey

Result and impact

18%

Total cash invested

56%

Increase in monthly investments

28%

Reduction in monthly churn rate

The new recurring investment feature was launched in mid 2023 and with a significant and positive impact on the business. With this revamped feature in place, Endowus was able to help users grow their long-term wealth over time, stay on track with their financial journey and develop regular investing habits. In addition, the business was also positioned to benefit from recurring revenue and AUM growth.

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