SBI Smart Money — Designing a digital investment platform
How could a mobile-first investment platform support different types of investors to trade with confidence and complete more transactions?
Overview
SBI Smart Money is a mobile trading and investment platform developed for State Bank of India’s retail investor base. The platform was designed to support a wide range of users — from first-time investors to experienced traders — while operating within strict regulatory, technical, and trust constraints.
I worked as a UX Researcher and Designer at Think Design, contributing to discovery, UX strategy, and end-to-end product design. The work focused on simplifying complex financial interactions, tailoring experiences to different investor behaviours, and enabling users to complete transactions with greater confidence. The platform went live as part of SBI’s wider digital transformation and has remained in use for over six years.
My role
UX Researcher & Designer
I contributed across discovery, research, UX strategy, and interaction design, working closely with stakeholders, product managers, and engineering teams.
My responsibilities included:
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helping facilitate visioning workshops with stakeholders
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conducting competitor benchmarking to identify experience gaps
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conducting multi-city user research
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developing personas and behavioural segmentation
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designing adaptive, personalised product experiences
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designing end-to-end product flows across onboarding, dashboards, portfolios, and transactions
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supporting delivery of a live, compliant product
The challenge
SBI aimed to build a mobile-first investment platform that could:
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cater to users with very different levels of financial literacy and trading experience
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reduce friction in complex, high-stakes financial transactions
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build trust with users unfamiliar with digital investing
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support frequent and confident trading behaviour
Many existing trading platforms were intimidating for new users, overloaded with dense information, and poorly aligned to different decision-making styles. At the same time, experienced users required speed, control, and access to detailed data. The challenge was to design an experience that balanced simplicity and depth, without compromising regulatory requirements, security, or transactional accuracy.
Discovery and research
I conducted user research across diverse cities to understand:
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how different investors make decisions
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trust barriers in digital trading platforms
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what information users need at different stages of the journey
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where complexity caused hesitation or drop-off
This was complemented by competitor benchmarking to understand where existing trading platforms created friction or cognitive overload.
This research informed the development of personas and behavioural segmentation, distinguishing between:
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active traders
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long-term investors
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users new to investing
Key product decisions and features
Drawing directly from research insights, we worked on a set of core experience decisions that shaped the product.
1. Facilitating ease with technology
To reduce friction and support frequent use, the platform offered multiple login options, including ID and password, PAN verification, m-PIN, and biometric authentication (thumbprint). This allowed users to access the app quickly while maintaining security and regulatory compliance.
2. Content customisation through behavioural segmentation
On first use, users answered a small set of questions that allowed the system to understand their trading behaviour. Based on this, users were segmented (e.g. trader, investor, new-to-market), and content across the app was tailored accordingly. This ensured users saw relevant information at the right time, rather than being overwhelmed by data designed for other user types.
3. Reducing cognitive overload in transactions
Key areas such as the customised dashboard, 360° portfolio view, watchlists, research, and trade flows were designed using progressive disclosure. Information was surfaced in layers, allowing users to drill down only when needed. This approach reduced cognitive load, increased user confidence, and supported smoother completion of complex transactions.
Designing the end-to-end experience
In a team of two, we designed end-to-end product flows across:
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account onboarding
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dashboards and portfolio views
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equity and derivatives trading journeys
Throughout the design process, I worked to simplify financial language, clarify decision points, and ensure that essential information remained explicit for trust and compliance. All design decisions balanced usability improvements with regulatory, technical, and security constraints.
Delivery and implementation
I worked closely with product and engineering teams to translate research insights and UX strategy into a live product. This involved:
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iterating designs based on technical feasibility
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resolving edge cases and compliance considerations
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maintaining consistency across complex transactional journeys
While detailed transaction metrics were not publicly disclosed, the work contributed to:
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a clearer and more accessible mobile trading experience
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improved user confidence when navigating complex financial decisions
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support for multiple investor types within a single platform
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a durable product that remained in use for over six years
The project demonstrated how research-led UX design can support engagement and transactional efficiency in regulated financial products.
Read more here
Learnings
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Designing SBI Smart Money highlighted how closely trust, clarity, and compliance are intertwined in financial experiences. Translating the credibility of a large, regulated institution into a digital product required careful attention to risk perception and customer confidence, not just usability improvements.
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The project deepened my understanding of the diversity within financial customer bases, and how behavioural design and personalisation can help users with different levels of experience make more confident decisions.
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Working within a complex organisational structure strengthened my ability to balance wider business objectives with insights from user research, particularly when designing under regulatory and technical constraints.
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If approached today, I would extend the behavioural segmentation framework using richer analytics to continuously refine user journeys and ensure the product remains inclusive across varying levels of digital literacy.