Posted on February 10, 2016 by Karl Sandford

Android/iOS Application Development

Initial Ideas :-

To kickstart the development of my iOS application I created a mind map to show the development of my ideas:

These elements that I was considering were produced after conducting research into existing UI Finance App design by SmashFreakz. The collection of images I was most interested in were collected on a Pinterest Board (https://uk.pinterest.com/karlsandford/app-inspiration/). In particular I was most interested in the ones that featured calendars. For example:

The use of a calendar can enable for financial tracking as well as microcredit tracking. Using the calendar, the date at which loans are repaid can be put onto the calendar so that those living in rural areas with little income are aware of the date this happens. This makes for no late repayments and therefore no extra chargers that could incur.

Another key area of development is the implementation of graphs and charts for financial tracking of income/expenses. The application would be directly with Chinese bank services to work as an all-in-one package for Mobile Banking as well as Financial Tracking.

Furthermore, the application will transcend beyond the pure inputting of information into a system, but it will also be user-orientated with the creation of a user account. So the user has the ability to login anywhere and everywhere to meet the needs of travelling.

Moodboard of App Designs

In a Moodboard of App Designs I gathered from Pinterest I noticed a pattern in some of the designs. The financial applications featured a strong green-oriented colour palette. According to colour psychology, ‘Green is the color of prosperity and abundance, of finance and material wealth. It relates to the business world, to real estate and property. Prosperity gives a feeling of safety to green.’ (http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/color-green.html)

Furthermore, two of the designs feature hexagonal buttons for navigation. I may choose to incorporate octagons to suit the brand identity of GRND8.

Smartphone Users Demographics

Statistic provides a bar chart that shows the distribution of smartphone users to urban and rural areas in 2012. ‘In 2012, around 30 percent of Chinese smartphone users lived in rural areas.’

To further develop this I will create an application to be used on tablets that NGO MFIs can use with the customers. The reason behind this would be the development of POS services within China similar to Awamo in Africa. This would rely on the increase in technological awareness.

Beginning the Design:

The first page design I created was for the calendar interface that would show daily income/expenses as well as month repayment tracking. Looking at this design it has ease of navigation but lacks detail. For example there is a lack of iconography that could lead to better user experience. The monthly repayment section needs a specific icon that can be placed on the calendar so that the user knows exactly when their month repayment is due.

First Design: Calendar

At this point the colours are mere placeholders and such research needs to be adapted in order to adjust to colour psychology. The one issue I am seeing already is how far I can blur the lines between being a product for the consumer or it being a product for businesses to enable the customer to use their businesses.

Alternatively, I may consider purely focusing on iPad application development so these can realistically be ideally produced at a low cost/large scale according to Xiaoshan. This would enable a fingerprint interface, similar to Awamo.

The main differences between an iPhone and iPad application design would be that the iPad would be used to create financial loans for customers and the iPhone application would be used so customers can track their finances.

Updated Designs

After I developed the first wave of designs for the interface I received some good criticism that gave me a large spectrum of ideas for development:

Login screen is simple and effective. Can I get rid of the box around login?
Iconography is needed for ‘monthly repayment.’
Delete the text associated with the icons along the bottom of the screen. It is too small and unnecessary. Can I changed the interface to a swipe and drag motion. Changes the practicality. More free-flowing.
Development of a menu screen.

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Karl Sandford

Introduction of GRND8.

The intended idea behind this project is to increase the infrastructure of micro-finance in parts of the world that would not usually have access to such system.

The output of the project will be a financial infrastructure to aid in the development of Chinese finance lenders, and to bring change/stability to an already existing system that is currently volatile in nature. GRND8 will bring widespread access to rural parts of China that ordinarily would not have access to micro-finance. It would also aid in the corruption of existing finance opportunities to configure poverty within the farming households of the country.

Brand Identity:

A stable infrastructure is essential to any business, country, product, etc. The identity of GRND8 reflects this. ‘GRND’ represents the foundations of the initiative by starting from the ground up to create a solid infrastructure. In Chinese culture, the number 8 (Ba in Chinese) has the similar pronunciation with 发 (Fa, meaning wealth or fortune), which is very welcome in this culture. Therefore the initiative has been named accordingly to emphasise the prospect of wealth with a stable infrastructure.

Working Logo.

Posted on February 9, 2016 by Karl Sandford

Identifying a Need.

As a continuation of the Money Matters EYA Category I have decided to continue my focus on micro-finance. However, rather than focus on assisting businesses and students on financial advisement, I would rather focus on provided micro-finance to areas of the world that ordinarily would not have access to such facilities. AWAMO are very much so focusing on bringing micro-finance options Sub-Saharan Africa full stop. A key consideration is their security policy with fingerprint identification, ‘In many instances, crime and violence act as a significant deterrent to investment and in some cities large areas have become literally ungovernable.’ (Hove, Muchemwa and Ngwerume, 2013).

MicrofinanceGateway provides significant articles and analyses on global micro-finance. In particular, a report from Mr. Du Xiaoshan, Chairman of China Microfinance Association, reflections on Micro Finance and Risk Management. He stated that a major constraint of development is sustainability and the ability of respective finance lenders. Furthermore research by scholars suggests that ‘since NGO MFI services mostly cover remote underdeveloped or sparsely populated areas, it is worth exploring whether they can take advantage of technologies like mobile banking, POS-devices and computerised MIS systems at low cost and large scale.’ Therefore a lack of technological access has significantly reduced the ability of smaller microfinance lenders to be able to access their market.

The proposed product will seek to solve this issue by providing an MFI system that can deliver this infrastructure to rural areas e.g. farming households, in China.

In An Analysis of Microfinance Demand in China by He Guangwen a table provides analysis of the ideal methods of meeting credit demand. In particular, the ideal methods for rural households can be targeted by microcredits/microcredits from cooperative financial institutions.

In The Current Situation and Future Prospects for Microfinance in China, Xiaoshan states that NGO MFI services over remote undeveloped/sparsely populated areas. The development of these areas can be further explored through the use of the availability of technologies like mobile/tablet/computerised applications.

The proposed product has the potential to be exactly what is needed to bring access to the undeveloped/sparsely populated areas. A system that would be used by MFI services to further spread the influence of micro-finance loans. I suggest the implementation of all the suggested technologies by Xiaoshan to do exactly this.

When identifying whether there is a need for these services to be provided for the people in these areas it is important to see whether the necessary technologies are necessary. An article by Shrader (2013), explores how almost every household in China has access to a bank account. However, ‘ There is a clear recognition that poorer families, particularly those in remote areas, have trouble accessing accounts and use them mainly for encashment, which can often require costly travel to bank branches or ATM in distant cities and towns.’ The inclusion of mobile banking at low cost and large scale can provide access to these families and households.

Posted on January 28, 2016 by Karl Sandford

R&D Presentation Review

Money Matters and Contemporary Finance Issues

The EYA Money Matters category can some suggestion to issues in society that could be solved or helped to be solved. So this category looked for a solution to enhance economic understanding. Could this idea be to fight poverty? Or to help people make a decent living? Or could it be innovations that create opportunities for social commerce?

Awamo

Awamo is a supplier for MFI’s that offers a mobile solution to credit lenders which is easy to use and affordable to a broad range. Awamo’s goal is to bring microfinance management solutions to rural parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. Due to the small nature of this business they have the potential for further expansion into the Far East. They’re unique selling point is a secure, fingerprint interface that heightens security in an already dangerous area. As well as enabling lenders to digitise their processes.

Overall Design and Functionality of the Product

From an aesthetic point of view the design is simplistic however it lacks the dynamic flow of other financial companies loan systems. It is important to note, however, that the Awamo interface is still in prototyping stages and that a complete design overhaul is due to take place.

From a practical point of view, the system is not at all complex. It has ease of understanding which benefits all types of customers. The practicality of the tablet combined with fingerprint identification is no way imposing and for businesses a package like this would be the most viable option for operating microfinances.

Despite the highly profiled fingerprint identification scanner the level of security still seems low. An extra level of security, for example a security answer, would create a safer data protection programme for all involved.

The key feature of this product is the data protection through fingerprint identification, which is ideal for a third world target audience. The ability to distribute tablets and scanners with ease to businesses makes for a key selling point where microfinance is easily accessible to audiences.

There is certainly space for development but as the design is in a prototype stage I would be interested to see the future of Awamo and its applications in Sub-saharan Africa.

User Experience

I could not access the product so I was able to see the co-founders of Awamo operate it.

The product looked very secure and easy to navigate. The user is presented with a window to choose whether they can login or create a new account.

Creating a new account required fingerprint identification which proved difficult to navigate because of its high level of security and complexity.

The overall experience is still being prototyped and Awamo should maintain its ease of navigation but build on aesthetically pleasing the user to set it aside from other companies that can offer microfinance software.

Accessible Microfinance

Microfinance is easily accessible in the UK. Large banks like Barclays enable expanding business-customer sales. The main issue surrounding the finance process is the difficulty of the process:

Time Consuming
Risking of passing the initial phase
Frustration and loss of sales
Businesses do not meet sales targets

Customers are asked for a variety of personal details that include:

Sole Income before/after tax or Household Income
Rental Payments
Previous addresses
Pension Payments

All of these details the customers may not have on their person at the time.

Graduate Knowledge

Recently graduated students are most likely to want to finance their purchases because of the lack of income immediately after university. The solution to this problem would initially target this audience. Graduates may want access to an Android/iPhone application.

Finance Apps

Spending and Good Budget.

A Middleman as a Solution?

The potential solution to this problem could be a management system that creates an account for the user to be used across multiple finance lenders. Which has the potential to be transformed into an Android/iPhone application. The solution could be a collaborative effort with finance lenders such as Barclays in order to better their infrastructure. To do this customers could be able to complete one finance and their account is registered whereby the details can be updated regularly by the customer.

The benefits of this system is that customers can track their finances. (x) amount they are paying across (y) amount of years. This would also enable multiple purchase tracking. Another benefits is that it quickens the finance process because the already existing information is in the system.

Security

Awamo is unique because of its fingerprint interface and this could be applicable to an infrastructure/application for finance lenders in this country. Multiple layers of protection would secure bank details:

Password
Digit Pin
Security Question

Bank details (Bank card number/sort code) are not inputted for security reasons.

Posted on November 4, 2015 by Karl Sandford

Good and Bad Logo Design

Why is this logo design bad?

The icon of Grey County has little relevance to what the company is trying to promote. There is an imbalance of serif and sans serif that creates an unnecessary contrast. The use of the slogan ‘colour it your way’ balanced with Grey County implies that there is nothing to colour or rather ‘bring to life’. However, this is all a matter of perception. Developing the logo itself to have more relevance could improve the design as well as using just one style of typeface.

Why is this logo design good?

The circular form presents of the logo presents a naturalistic flow. The accompanying image to the name of the company is relevant as the four-coloured objects look like tails and the bright colours emphasise the spark behind the company. The choice of colour palette is contrasting in a positive way mores than the imbalance of communication presented in Grey County. The typeface is maintained throughout implying formality and neatness.

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