Bank App Investment Feature

Objective

Redesign HSBC’s FlexInvest app to deliver a frictionless, personalised investment experience for mass and mass-affluent users, transforming a low engagement feature into a trusted, intuitive digital wealth tool.

Target audience

HSBC retail banking customers with moderate investment experience, including busy professionals seeking automated portfolio guidance.

Roll & Responsibilities

Role: Senior UX Designer

Responsibilities: Led end-to-end UX activities including research, persona development, journey mapping, design strategy, high-fidelity prototyping, and coordination with product and engineering teams across Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

Problem Statement

How might we redesign the FlexInvest feature for HSBC’s customers so that they feel confident engaging with digital discretionary investments, minimising cognitive load, building trust and encouraging discovery, while working within existing technical constraints, knowledge gaps, and a tight delivery timeline?

Research

Methodology 

Conducted 12 informal interviews, app audits, and competitive benchmarking. Synthesised insights into behavioural archetypes and mapped needs to HSBC’s business objectives.

Key Findings

  • Discoverability Gap

    • Users often saw FlexInvest in-app but ignored it due to task-focused behavior and unclear value.

  • Experience Mismatch

    • Active investors preferred platforms like Interactive Brokers with granular control.

  • Trust vs. Complexity

    • Users trusted HSBC but felt overwhelmed by jargon, fee opacity, and static PDF-based reporting.

  • Segment-Specific Needs

    • Novice users sought hand-holding and reassurance; experienced users wanted visual clarity and control.

Ideation

Approach: Mapped journey gaps and ideated around three opportunity areas:

  1. Personalisation

    • Dynamic greeting, age-based projections, pre-filled guidance flows

  2. Transparency

    • Clear upfront pricing simulations and rebalancing logic

  3. Confidence Cues

    • HSBC branding, simple explainer content, and risk-adjusted scenarios

Design

Design Challenges

  • Presenting rich financial content without cognitive overload

  • Designing for trust while nudging behavioural change

  • Working within the existing mobile architecture and API limitations

Solutions

Designed investment simulators showing projected returns based on age, time horizon, and risk appetite.

Developed rich portfolio dashboards with color coded asset breakdowns and interactive gain/loss recaps.

Integrated contextual education content and smart notifications aligned to key moments (for example, rebalancing triggers).

Prioritised accessibility and localisation scalability in design system tokens.

User Testing

Testing Methods

Internal UAT and moderated usability testing with HSBC internal staff representing various personas.

Feedback Integration

  • Reduced decision steps significantly after observing drop-off at investment review screen.

  • Revised fee explanation screens with visual aids based on confusion during testing.

  • Iterated visual hierarchy and interaction microcopy to reinforce user confidence.

Impact

  • Quantitative Results: Increase in internal adoption during UAT (benchmark: click-through rate on portfolio selection and engagement time).

  • Qualitative Feedback: Users reported increased confidence, with one tester stating, “This is the first time I understood what my portfolio is actually doing.”

Learnings

This project deepened my experience designing in regulated environments, balancing user trust with system constraints. I honed skills in prioritising features under strict delivery timelines, and refined stakeholder storytelling using customer insight as leverage.

Conclusion

FlexInvest 2.0 represents more than a feature update, it repositions HSBC’s investment services to better serve modern customers who want clarity, trust, and control.

This project underscores the impact of user-centered design in regulated financial spaces and my ability to turn abstract requirements into outcomes that are measurable, scalable, and meaningful.

Partner with me to shape user experiences that matter.

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