All work
Fintech
2025
Halden
Rebuilding a challenger bank’s savings experience around goals, not balances.
Client
Halden Bank
Role
Lead Designer
Timeline
7 months
Services
Strategy, UX, UI, Design System
+38%
goal completion
−27%
savings support tickets
4.8
App Store rating
01
The problem
Halden had 400,000 customers and a savings product nobody talked about. People opened pockets, moved money in once and forgot them. Support tickets were mostly some version of “where did my money go?”
Leadership wanted more deposits. I wanted to know why people stopped caring after day one.
02
Research
We combined a diary study with twelve customers, a funnel review and three days of listening in on support calls.
Balances felt abstract; goals felt personal.
Round numbers motivated people more than percentages.
Moving money out felt like failure, so people avoided the app.
03
Process
I reframed the work around a single question: what would make someone open this on a Tuesday for no reason? We explored nine directions and tested four as clickable prototypes with 40 customers.
The winner was the least flashy. Goals with a face, a date and a small weekly ritual.
04
The solution
Each goal now has a photo, a deadline and a calm progress line that shows when you will get there at your current pace.
Withdrawals without guilt
Taking money out became an honest, neutral action with a quick note, so the goal adjusts instead of breaking.
05
Outcomes
Goal completion rose 38% in the first two quarters, and savings-related support tickets dropped by over a quarter. The new patterns now anchor Halden’s design system.
The biggest shift was cultural. Once the team heard customers talk about their goals, deposits stopped being the only number anyone watched.
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