Banking doesn’t have to be boring.

Creating a bold new vision for Scotiabank’s consumer facing products and communications with a new design language.

Brand Design | UX Design | Packaging Design

Timeline: October 2023 (< 1 week)

Sector: Financial

Tools Used: Sketch

Scotiabank is one of Canada’s leading financial institution, providing consumers with a range of financial products like chequing and savings accounts, credit cards, and mortgage solutions. Scotiabank also offers a special rewards program called Scene+ that can be used to earn and redeem points towards free movies, flights, hotels, groceries, electronics, and more

Problem and Project Goal.

Banks are often overlooked when adopting new design trends, they are often the necessity that just fades into the background, when they are omnipresent. We use a debit or credit card pretty much every day, we carry it on us as much as we do our phones - or have them in our digital wallets. An engaged user experience can motivate user commitment, and lead to long term investments and profits for the institution. Scotiabank might be losing out on those consumers.

Thus, Creating that first time feeling rooted in excitement to sign up for Scotiabank and use the products more extensively because of the elevated user experience is vital. Redesigning the cards, welcome package, and the monthly statements.

Research.

For my research, I looked up the different credit and debit cards the different banks are providing. I checked my own bank statements and dug through the envelopes sitting on the kitchen counter to find the welcome package I received when I first signed up.

Looking through these products, I noticed a lot of inconsistency across the different pieces of communications, along with a few good card designs in an ocean of badly designed ones. Here are few examples of what I saw and the primary issues I identified.

General Observations

  • Too busy

  • Outdated design language

  • Randomly aligned logs and texts

  • Still show card number at the front

User Pain Points

  • User Privacy - Leading to a lack of trust

  • Hard to understand monthly statements - Leading to a negative image of the financial institution

  • User research needed to discover alternative payment plans - Leading to frustrations

Findings

A simpler design is desired - one that would lead to a positive user experiences, which will increase user trust, while minimizing frustrations.

Implementation + Design.

I wanted my designs to have a simple background, large font sizes and a clean front, with all essential security information at the back. Once my ideas were solidified, I looked at some designs by online banks that have come up in the last few years (e. Tangerine, Koho, Simplii). These banks are taking a more modern approach towards design and are creating products that align more with the design languages we see all around us these days. These designs served as an inspiration.

The redesigned Scotiabank Debit Card

The redesigned Scotiabank Gold Amex Card

The redesigned Scotiabank Scene Visa Card

The redesigned Scotiabank Passport Visa Infinite Card

These cards bring together the striking Red, Black and White colour scheme of Scotiabank, paired with a simplified design that allows the logo to become the primary design elements, ditching the ‘bank’ and just reinforcing the main brand identity. These cards are not littered with logos and numbers, by keeping just the essential Visa and Scene+ branding upfront and moving the Name, Card Number, Security Number, Expiry Date, and the interac logos to the back. This also allows the card to become more secure by preventing information theft.

I decided to go with the red for the ScotiaCard since it is the card that every customer would receive, it is the essential Scotiabank identifier and thus comes in the essential Scotiabank Red colour. On a different note, I went with a black and red colour scheme for the Visa Credit Card since it is the more frequently used card for most of the users, and should have a more upscale appearance that a user would be proud to present at different merchants. For the Scotiabank Amex, and Scotiabank Passport cards, I wanted them to have a more conventional premium look while retaining the new design languages and thus, went with a gold and platinum colours schemes.

The redesigned Welcome Package

The Pamphlet

The welcome document continues the design language seen in the cards, but introduces more colours to the mix (changing depending on the card). It lists your main new features, your fees, and ofcourse the contents of the package

The SoctiaCard

The card is not pasted on a paper anymore, but instead comes inside a small packet, with a special seal that ensure its safety.

Introduction.

The Envelope

The main envelop doesn’t give me too much space to play around with but I envisioned just having a huge hero logo at the top and nothing else about the content of the package.

Your Personal Banking Manager

The one person you can connect with who will help you with all your financial needs, now assigned to you as soon as you receive your card.

The Sticker

With positive experience, comes pride. Show off your commitment to great user experience, and Scotiabank

The redesigned Monthly Statement

The final piece in the puzzle is the monthly statement. You get it printed or delivered online to you every month but it usually seems impossible to read and straight from the 1980’s. Surprisingly this was the last piece of this project but allowed me to innovate the most. With better hierarchy and readability and adding a new convenient feature called the SmartPay wheel.

The NEW monthly statement is complete redesign with a pop of colour and easy to read hierarchy and typography.

The balance is now displayed upfront and in huge font that allows you to know the amount due, the due date and your statement period right away without having to pry through small texts throughout the document. All of this information is accompanied by a more detailed breakdown of your spending, your minimum balance due, your account number, and your credit limit. On the left side, you get a summary of your Scene+ points and how many points you have right now. Finally the page shows you your interest rates so you can be smart about your financial planning and decisions. Accompanied by a SmartPay Wheel which shows you possible options of minimum amount, 25%, 50%, 75% payments of your current balance due and how much interest you will incur with each plan. This feature saves you the calculations and allows you to see your interests in monetary amounts easily, allowing transparency between the institution and the customer and hopefully promotes you to make healthy financial decisions.

Conclusion

This project was born from the motivation to make banking a little bit more interesting while allowing for genuine improvements to be made when it comes to design so that the customers don’t have to struggle when managing their finances. I truly believe that if it is a necessity, then it should be the first thing that is user friendly. I made an effort to invoke a modern design language when it comes to banking solution but like every new design, it has its drawbacks.

Next Steps

  • Research other users who are customers of Scotiabank and record their experiences with the products and what changes they would value.

  • Further explore other financial institutions and how a redesign can move beyond the old ways and still maintain the image of security and support, that people doubt with the new modern banks.

  • Carry the redesign to all the other Scotiabank products to create a uniform brand design language.