Designing a Solution for Nigeria’s Wealthiest Individuals

Understanding Nigeria’s Wealthy through contextual research and multiple prototyping and testing

To answer the bank’s brief, we studied over 100 individuals across 3 key states. For a period of 5 weeks, we immersed ourselves in the lives of CEOs, CFOs, multi-millionaire business men and women, young millionaires and investors. We visited their workplaces, homes, social gatherings and places of leisure to learn about everything that was important to them and finally their relationship to money.

Using thematic analysis, we drew out insights from our findings, interpreted them into features and interactions on a digital platform, and then carried out a series of prototyping and testing sessions with users. We tested with low fidelity paper prototypes, and then with more refined prototypes on digital devices, as we continued getting feedback.

Leveraging the insights we’d arrived at enabled us to develop features that resonated with this people group by catering to their growing needs and desires. For instance, we discovered that the affluent gravitate more towards more exclusive rewarding experiences as they rise, this resulted as a feature on the app that can be described as a digital replica of an exclusive private club experience containing all the bells and whistles that the uber wealthy were accustomed to, from private, luxurious events to exclusive investments deals.

Learning that the HNIs had an incredibly soft spot for families, regardless of their past experience, upbringing, religion and even cultural influences, we designed the product to tie in the inclusion of family-oriented goals and needs. A feature we built around this insight was grounded in the fact that wealthy Nigerians often sent their children overseas to study. Tying their financial goals to their love of family, we developed an avenue for investing on the app that allowed them to put away money required for this stage of their families’ lives.

Building from a place of understanding and insight, the final outcome was a solid financial product that combined investment opportunities with personalized lifestyle solutions for the HNI. The solution was well received by the public at its March 2021 launch, and has since grown to reach more customer segments.