Case Study: Umbrella Akad, Simplifying Funding Process for ALAMI P2P Funders

🤔 a little back story and the problem:

ALAMI facilitates lending by bridging the gap between funders and borrowers (beneficiaries). Once ALAMI's risk assessment team evaluates and approves a beneficiary's project, it is launched on the ALAMI app and ready for campaign. Here's where the challenge arises: funders keen on funding a campaign not only face competition to chip in but also encounter hurdles in signing the digital signature required for each campaign. ALAMI uses a third-party vendor for digital signatures. This dual struggle, competing to fund a campaign and dealing with the separate step of signing a digital signature through third party vendor for each campaign, has led to numerous complaints and a significant number of unsuccessful funding attempts. The process seems to be causing friction, hindering the seamless flow of chip in and impacting the overall success of funding campaigns.

My Role	Product designer (conception, visualization, interaction, UX and UI Design, Testing, Prototyping, coordinating with developers and PMs, pitching to stakeholder)
Team mates	Mahardhika Sulistyo (Direct Lead), Sukmayanti (PM), Sefrina Zafira R. (Product Researcher), and a lot of engineering team
Key Expert/Stakeholder	Ops, Customer Service Team and ALAMI P2P apps users
Dates	Q1 2021 - Q2 2021
Sector	Financial Technology

🎯 Goals:

To address these challenges, we have devised a strategy to simplify the funding process. We propose conducting the digital signature through third party only once. This singular digital signature will be treated as a 'parent akad' or 'umbrella,' signifying its role across every project. This streamlined approach aims to enhance the user experience and improve tbrowseress rate of funding campaigns.

Goal	Metric
Increase Project Absorptions	Funding success rate (percentage of campaigns fully funded without intervention)
Increase Transactions	Success rate of chip-in transactions (percentage of chip-in attempts that successfully go through)

🎨 Design Process:

I won't delve into the detailed phases, as the design process follows the familiar path of discovery, followed by definition, development, and finally delivery. However, the key emphasis lies in streamlining the process through the use of an "umbrella akad" or at ALAMI we called it "Akad Payung".

But before that, let me walk you through the process of funders doing the chip in process:

Funders Funding Process (Funders have to go through this entire process every single time they want to fund or chip in on a campaign. Can you imagine? )

Pay attention to red dash process. During this stage, various challenges may arise, attributed to factors such as funder's internet connectivity issues, confusion regarding form completion, and delays in receiving OTP codes from third party. These seemingly small issues add up. By the time a funder completes the process, the campaign may already be fully funded, leaving them frustrated and failed to fund the campaign :(

To address these challenges and reduce reliance on third-party elements, we aim to streamline the process. Our proposed solution involves creating a contract (akad) that requires a one-time signature but can be utilized multiple times for each campaign

Here the simplify flow:

New Flow of Funding Process. Every new funder must go through the digital signature process, as outlined in the initial flow. However, once they’ve completed it, the system will automatically save their digital signature, allowing them to seamlessly fund future campaigns without repeating the process.

In the simplified flow, once the contract is signed, it is automatically saved, functioning as an 'umbrella akad' or 'Akad Payung' for future transactions. The only additional step in the app is a confirmation page called Approval of Funding (AoF).

Here the final prototype:

Final Prototype

The small "Please wait" animation that appears after funders click the "Fund Now" button indicates that the system is verifying whether the funder already has a registered digital signature. If they do, a single signature will be used across all funding projects. However, if the funder does not have a digital signature on file, they must complete the signature process before proceeding with the funding. Think of it as a VIP pass: once you have it, the doors stay open for all future campaigns. 🎟️

🎊 Result Following the release of the 'Umbrella Akad' feature and monitoring by the Operations team, we observed notable improvements that align with our goals of increasing project absorptions and transaction success.

• Ticket complaints related to digital signature issues decreased significantly by 45.7%, indicating a smoother user experience during the chip-in process.

• Additionally, the success rate of funding without outbound contact rose from 90% in June to 96.9%, reflecting a more seamless and efficient transaction flow.

  
  

All these improvements help remove friction in the funding process, supporting our big-picture goals: getting more chip-in transactions through smoothly and helping more projects get the funding they need.

🙌 Some appreciation of our works 🎉

I captured some kind words from our team and company members when this initiative started showing its impact. Please bear with me, I'm not trying to brag, but seeing these messages truly feels like a boost, like a little addiction that pushes me to do even better and to keep giving our users the best experience possible. Here they are:

From our CEO:

From our Head of Funding and Relationship Manager: