Impower: Expert financial guidance for immigrants
A non-profit platform providing immigrants - specifically lower income and/or with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) - with expert-designed financial plans.
PROJECT NAME
Impower
TYPE OF WORK
Capstone project for MS Strategic Design and Management program at Parsons School of Design*
SKILLS & PROCESSES
Primary & Secondary Research
Prototyping & User Testing
UI/UX and Product Development
Branding
Business Modeling
DURATION
30 weeks (2 semesters)
TEAM
Anamika Gopi, Nikita Deshpande, Valentina Palacios
DATE
Fall 2022 - Spring 2023
Challenge
Out of 45 million immigrants in the US, 53% are not fully proficient in English, and 23% are illegal or undocumented. These factors, combined with residing in lower-income neighborhoods and earning in cash, make it difficult to establish creditworthiness and generate wealth over time. This situation is worsened by the lack of access to big banks that face red tape in innovating to offer tailored services for immigrants (especially low-income and/or limited English proficiency).
Solution
Impower’s mission is to empower this audience to meet their financial goals and develop financial dignity and independence. Our online platform provides users with expert-designed financial plans tailored to their needs and goals. These plans are then delivered in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format and supported by a verified mentor within the user’s own community. Supporting features include multi-lingual educational content, peer-reviewed services, and chat forums.
Impower could potentially help 11 million people in the US access financial guidance that is easy, accessible, trustworthy, and understandable.
Overview of Solution
Primary Features:
An expert-designed financial plan tailored to user needs
Peer mentorship from verified mentors within immigrant communities
Free, multi-lingual, not for profit
Secondary Features:
Community forums
Peer-reviewed financial and immigrant services
In-person support and events
How Might We Design for Users That...
Require assistance with basic and advanced financial tasks
Prefer the step-by-step guidance of in-person engagement but the convenience of online service
Aren't sure where to begin saving or investing for their future
Are unaware of the options aware to them
Do not engage in credit-building activities
Have limited English proficiency
Key Explorations
How might we provide our audience with easily accessible and actionable financial guidance?
We aimed to understand the barriers that stood in the way of user success and how to design a platform that not made users feel accountable but also encouraged them to continue pursuing new goals.
Having identified trust as the biggest negative influence on users’ engagement with financial systems, we set out to understand how we could establish trust with users and ensure they felt heard, every step of the way.
How might we build trust with our audience?
How might we encourage users through community engagement?
Having recognized the importance of word-of-mouth information in immigrant communities, we explored how we could bring peer- to-peer engagement and community interactions to the platform.
How might we incentivize mentors and advisors to contribute?
We prioritized exploring how to encourage contributions from the stakeholders providing guidance and information. While monetary compensation remained essential to peer mentors, we intended to assess what other value we could provide to them.
As South Asian and South American immigrants ourselves, we were in a unique position to engage with both the context and our audience. However, we recognize our privilege in being financially stable, with legal immigrant status and multiple resources accessible to us.
As we engaged with our audience, we made a continued effort to stay mindful of this and remained aware of our approach and methods of communication.
Points of Consideration
Barriers to Financial Empowerment
Many immigrants live paycheck to paycheck and are not able to prioritize saving or wealth generation due to more urgent financial demands. This lack of choice and control over one's financial future can lead to long-term stress and decision fatigue.
Lack of Preparedness for Crisis
Anxiety Surrounding Lack of Documentation
Immigrants in the USA often feel helpless and lack control over their finances - they also face disproportionate financial stress and anxiety due to a lack of personal identification, language barriers, or a lack of understanding of the system - which can impact their decision-making.
Underserved communities are more likely to harbor mistrust against large banking institutions due to a lack of representation, perceptions of high fees, and the belief that big banks don't have people's best interests in mind. They believe smaller organizations such as credit unions, community banks, or FinTechs, represent their needs better.
Mistrust & Perceptions
The regulations and legal requirements surrounding big financial institutions prevent them from frequent or disruptive innovation, even when their systems intend to launch new initiatives. Smaller organizations in contrast, such as FinTechs, credit unions or community banks, are able to work around these obstacles and address consumer needs with more ease and agility.
Innovative Potential
How might we support financial inclusion and resilience in the future?
We interviewed experts from finance giants, FinTech entrepreneurs, small business owners and people of color looking to create wealth for the next generation.
The result? Financial inclusion and equity is something for all stakeholders to strive for. But attention needs to be paid to individuals who struggle to choose between basic needs and their long-term financial goals.
Prototype
Snapshots from Impower’s Pitch
Impower’s UX Report
Our extensive report details the entire project process, including the tools, methods, activities, and stakeholders involved in our research. The prototype development, user testing, and MVP processes are also documented.
