10 tips for creating perfect fintech app design

Both successful financial service providers such as Revolut and new players like Genuine Impact are well aware of this fact. As a result, they have gone the extra mile and invested in their software design, so that it’s user-friendly, clear, intuitive – and sometimes even fun. If you are eager to know what to do to follow in their footsteps, you’re in the right place. All because in this article, you’ll find an extensive collection of fintech design tips.

Do your research, learn the subject

Being a designer, you might feel tempted to start looking for perfect colors and fonts right away. However, before you do so, it's crucial to dive into the subject in the first place. Let’s face it: finance is a complex business. If you want to get to know it well, you have to learn as much as you can about the given financial service and its terminology. This will help you stand out from your competitors who – much like your company – are fighting for the fintech client.

Make the security your priority

When it comes to money, security is the top priority – and there are no shortcuts to achieving it. Fintech apps process a lot of sensitive user data that need to meet financial regulations and fulfill apps functionalities. It all requires designing some extra security features such as additional sign-ins, login sessions, onboarding or notifications.

At this point, it’s worth mentioning that although the burden of software security lies primarily on the backend side, it is the fintech design’s job to visualize and communicate it in such a way so as to win the users’ trust.

Mind your language

Another tenet of usability if fintech design is the language that ought to be simple yet clear. You can’t afford any misconceptions: each action, alert, and label must be meaningful. Achieving this goal often involves simplifying terms and processes so that everyone can understand them, whether they have comprehensive financial knowledge or not. It’s also important to clearly explain to your users why you need given data.

Security and language meet in the forms so remember to make them flawless. Easy to use, well explained, and justified. You can read more about designing better web and mobile forms on our blog.

Make your fintech design easier

One of the biggest pain points of many financial websites and apps is overloading users with heaps of indigestible information. Big numbers with not enough context, tangled navigation, overcomplicated layout, and unclear call to actions put a strain on users.

Try to avoid that by focusing on what they are really trying to accomplish and help them do that. Work on page layout, content display, and the flow. Keep the key functionalities easily accessible and change cold financial data into graphs or charts. At the end of the day, visualizing data is a great way to improve the overall experience for the user.

But design more complex elements as well

That’s right! Although the rule of thumb is to make your design simple, when dealing with money, effortless actions are not always the best idea. Afterall you don’t want your user to make mistakes with their assets. That’s why sometimes it’s worth considering supplementing your fintech design with roadblocks like extra confirmation and verification.

When it comes to UI, think about personality

This is something that drives lots of successful fintech companies. Most mobile and web apps are fun, regardless of the industry they operate in. Banks don’t look like old-fashioned business establishments – some of them are brave enough to reimagine the conservative status quo of your typical finance branding. New generations of fintech startups show off bold colors and utilize modern streams of communication. They use informal language when talking to their customer audience and invite them to have fun on a daily basis.

Bearing this in mind, consider breaking the rules and creating a truly memorable style for the product. Don’t be afraid to use humor or gamification – Emirates NBD, for example, links a saving account to the users’ fitness activity – every step the customer takes, brings them closer to a higher interest rate. And its customers seem to really enjoy it!

You can also enrich the flow with lighted-hearted animations that will make users smile when performing day-to-day tasks. Don’t take the fun out of an app just because it’s a fintech product. Infuse it with the personality that increases user engagement and efficiency.

Of course, you need to be cautious when dealing with sensitive subjects like transferring money or displaying investment losses that aren’t suitable for joking. See the service from different angles and choose wisely where to add fun to your fintech design and where not to distract the user.

Choose the right colors for your fintech design

In financial products color coding, especially regarding green and red, holds great significance. In other industries, you can experiment with the color symbolism and try to go against the tide. In finance, however, any revolution will backfire at you disastrously. Green and red are loaded with some universal meanings: buy and sell, profit and loss. This is why so many fintech companies choose blue as their brand color. It stands out really well and gives contrast to the data visualization.

When choosing the color palette for the app, think about enhancing visibility and clearness. Pay attention to contrast, use white backgrounds and sharp, intense colors that positively stimulate users.

Embrace the whitespace as it gives you the hierarchy and allows the content to breathe. Dark backgrounds are great for data visualization and go well with colorful charts. Nonetheless, they work poorly with lots of text and on low-end mobile devices.

Test your fonts, leave nothing to chance

Fonts you use in fintech design need to be readable and understandable, with no exceptions. There will be a lot of places where you will be forced to use fine print. Make sure that the contrast is on point and the font itself works well with small sizes.

Test not only the different size rendering but also flexibility and legibility of frequently used characters. Remember that finance revolves around numbers and special characters so make sure the chosen font handles them well. Check the display of “%” or “$” and other international currency symbols. Avoid old-style figures (hanging 4s, 9s and so on). If you think globally, make sure that your fonts support different languages.

Think about different content options

Although this rule holds true for all types of mobile app designs, in the case of fintech projects it's even more important. Be aware of the formatting of values, numbers, and amounts which vary across the globe. In some countries, you will see “4,000” and “$20”, while others will use “4.000” and “20$” – not to mention the abundance of different date formats. That’s why you should always research the correct formatting for the given market and be consistent.

Design with different values in mind. To give you an example, 100,00 EUR equals 10 120,12 JPY which is the equivalent of 1 500 610,54 IDR. You get the point – always assume big discrepancies between values of different currencies and make sure all the numbers will fit in nicely in a given space. Moreover, never forget about digits after the decimal point.

Keep the designs scalable

The fintech industry is growing fast. There is a good chance the service you’re working on will need updates very soon – all to answer new user needs, respond to technology and law changes, or simply not to be outshone by the competition. Thus, it’s advisable to design apps with the potential to evolve in the future. To make it easier, consider using a Design System or at least a good style guide, that will help you work at new product iterations.

Final thoughts on fintech design

Fintech is indeed a demanding industry: it calls not only for innovation but also for trust and transparency. As a result, crafting a perfect fintech design is a considerable challenge. On the one hand, it has to present a plethora of data in a coherent and clear way. On the other, it requires just the right amount of creativity to win the users’ hearts without looking like you’re trying too hard. The good news is, however, that taking the above ten hints, you’re more than likely to achieve all of these goals.

Learn more about our product design services and see how we can make your app both pretty and functional.