User-friendly financial services are a touchstone of the AnPost Money digital transformation. The redesigned app and web experience are part of an omnichannel platform that will help the company engage, acquire and retain customers as they consume the AnPost Money offerings.

I built and led a Dublin-based product and experience design team, embedding a human-centric design thinking process to create smart, simple and straightforward experiences that support the brand vision that AnPost is human about money. Phase one of the app overhaul revamped core current account functionality and features such as account view, transaction history, payments, transfers and card management. Customers can now also easily connect their current account to industry-leading contactless tap-and-pay vendors via their phone or smartwatch.

The team also created a rich youth account product, paving the way for lasting relationships with these new customers, with simplified account features and sturdy parental controls baked in from the start. AnPost’s Youth Bank Account offers easy to understand views for a younger audience and gives parents the ability to assign and track jobs related to pocket money as they teach their children responsible money management. Providing emergency access to money if a child is in need, as well as allowing parents and grandparents to top up a child’s savings easily, are some of the innovative features developed.

Both account types feature an innovative savings mechanism called ‘jars’ that helps customers set and work toward specific goals and save faster by rounding off spare change as they spend. This also formed the basis of more advanced budgeting features being developed for future releases.

Another win for the implementation was the use of a pure Agile, phased approach. In phase one, we built an entirely, new banking platform that targets Current Accounts and new Youth Accounts, putting AnPost Money in a great position to create new innovative products and services. In phase two of the transformation, we expanded the banking platform to deliver Forex and open banking, along with a state-of-the-art smart money platform built on the machine learning algorithm and data science concept, which uses advanced analytics and data insights.

Phase one of the multiphase transformation sets the foundation for a number of new An Post Money products and services and puts An Post Retail on the path to becoming the Irish consumer’s preferred financial services provider.