Refining the Vancity Fair & Fast Loan™ application to reduce operating costs, ease user anxiety, and drive business growth.

Vancity’s digital Fair & Fast Loan™ application was an essential product, but the existing design created significant pain points for both members and staff. The core business challenge was solving an operational burden caused by a flawed user experience; confusing financial terms and a lack of clarity led to user anxiety, high support call volumes, and costly loan rewrites.
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Our team was responsible for a complete redesign aimed at improving operational efficiency and member satisfaction. By focusing on creating a fast, convenient, and transparent digital lending experience, the new platform successfully doubled Vancity's asset growth target to over $10M and processed 46,000 loans within the first three months of launch.

Through benchmark testing, journey mapping, and staff interviews, we discovered several key issues:
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Financial Literacy Gaps
Complex financial terms and unclear details about interest rates and repayments caused user confusion and eroded their confidence. Users asked questions like, "What does 'bi-weekly' mean?"

Lack of Clarity & Trust
Vague language, such as "deposited very shortly," and hidden information damaged user trust and created friction.

Operational Burden
The flawed user experience drove a high volume of support calls and forced staff to spend valuable time rewriting loans that members couldn't afford. Staff noted, "We're rewriting loans because users choose shorter loan lengths where the monthly payments are too high".

To build empathy and ground our design process, we focused on the persona of "Brady — The Overwhelmed Worker". Brady represents the loan's primary users who have limited access to traditional credit and need funds to cover an urgent or unforeseen expense. They are often in a state of financial stress or desperation. Like many, they have never received a formal financial education and feel ashamed or anxious when discussing their finances. The entire redesign was centred on creating a supportive, clear, and transparent digital lending experience for users like Brady.

Our solution was an accessible, scalable, and seamless platform that met WCAG 2.1 AA standards and was fully responsive. The core of the redesign involved addressing the key user pain points head-on:

‍1. Building Trust with Upfront Requirements
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Problem: Users had to complete half of the application before learning if they met key requirements.
‍Solution: I reworked the user flow to introduce an upfront requirements check. This critical change redirected ineligible applicants to support staff immediately, a key pain point identified in call centre interviews.
‍Impact: This maintained user trust and significantly lowered drop-off rates later in the application flow.

‍2. From Confusion to Clarity
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Problem: Users were confused by financial terms and often overlooked final payment amounts, leading to loan rewrites.
‍Solution: I added tooltips to explain terms like "payment frequency" in plain language and redesigned the calculator to prioritize the final payment amount display.
‍Impact: This boosted user confidence and reduced the number of costly loan rewrites.

‍3. Easing Disqualification Fears
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Problem: Asking for employment details early in the application created anxiety and caused users to drop off.
‍Solution: I moved the employment information section to after loan eligibility is confirmed.
‍Impact: This simple change resulted in fewer drop-offs during the early stages of the application process.

‍4. Banishing Loan Status Anxiety
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Problem: After being approved, users felt uncertain about their final loan status and when the first payment would be withdrawn.
‍Solution: The new design clearly confirms eligibility with the maximum approved amount and allows users to schedule their first payment to align with their income deposits.
‍Impact: This prevented loan rewrites that were previously caused by misaligned repayment schedules.

To launch a compliant and user-friendly platform, I established a process rooted in agile UX practices and scalable systems.

Accelerated & Agile Workflow
Working with Vancity's first agile team, I established a design-dev workflow that kept the design phase one sprint ahead of engineering. This proactive approach ensured seamless handoffs, allowed for rapid iteration, and was key to our accelerated delivery.

Simplifying Complex Compliance
A major challenge was navigating the strict legal mandates of the financial industry. I worked as a partner with the Legal and Compliance teams to translate these complex requirements into intuitive, user-friendly flows that felt simple and supportive for the member.

Scaling for the Future
To ensure Vancity could build on this project's success, I worked with a teammate to create a flexible and scalable design system. This component library and set of guidelines were built to support not just the Fair & Fast Loan™, but all upcoming lending products, ensuring brand consistency and accelerating future development.

Ensuring a Successful Launch
Finally, I led a multi-faceted validation process to guarantee a successful launch. This included hands-on usability testing with members, a thorough design QA to ensure a polished final product, and presenting our work to secure C-suite approval.

The redesigned platform was a definitive success, achieving flawless performance and delivering on key business goals.
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$10M in Year-Over-Year Asset Growth: Exceeded the initial $5M target by 2x.
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‍46K Loans Processed: In the first 3 months alone, with zero critical defects.
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‍Reduced Operational Strain: A significant reduction in support calls and the elimination of costly loan rewrites.

Our team also designed and developed the adjudication system for credit-based loans, set to launch on the lending platform in a future release.

Adapting Communication to Stakeholder Needs
Stakeholders couldn't always join our sprint updates due to schedule conflicts. Next time, I'll supplement these meetings with brief email recaps or short videos to enable asynchronous feedback and keep everyone aligned.
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‍Integrating Legal as a Proactive Design Partner
We engaged with Legal and Compliance late in the process, which created some rework. Going forward, I will engage them early in the design process to ensure regulatory requirements are considered from the start, preventing delays and rework.