Cetelem is a subsidiary of BNP Paribas Personal Finance. In Belgium, Cetelem is part of the AlphaCredit group, a credit specialist with 30 years of experience. Cetelem Alphacredit wanted to reinforce their user/clients relationships by switching their first self care / communication channel to mobile in Belux.

The company had no experience in mobile design & development, they just started deploying the Agile way of working while switching their focus from business development to user care / well being. The Mobile offer squad led the change as Agile pilot.

Our target was to deploy a best in class native app on iOS and Android within a year. KPIs: Convert 25% of the current client portfolio the first year and decrease the number of calls to the after-sales department by 22,000.

The C-App was going to be the cornerstone of Cetelem - Alphacredit business model evolution, pushing self-care and users-oriented content through digital channels. It showcased the company modernisation while allowing us to catch up with the competition while being consistent with the BNP Fortis ecological values.

Our goal was to gather a maximum of valuable data from the current users / clients and prospects. Define the needs, expectations and project plan. We lacked understanding in customer needs and expectations. What kind of client would use the app? What would they want to achieve? What are their pain points?

To fill this gap, we started to listen to users and created a plan in 3 steps. First, define a UX project plan with three phases: research, conceptualisation, design and testing. These phases are not prepared in a linear way. They are intertwined, connected, approached in parallel... Second, interview real Cetelem users (FR and NL) but also banking app users. And finally, investigate the standards and best practices that users are likely to expect in a product like ours (comparative assessment).

Users want to be autonomous in their product use and management. Access to information is key, as they go on their app to see if they have the ability to pay for this or that. Their priority is to know their situation, the status of their credits, where they stand. We needed to develop something easy, pragmatic, that goes straight to the point.

Our objective was to analyse and understand the data, form a strategy and start prioritysing.

After gathering the users feedback, we worked on an app structure. We classified app features by frequency of use / appetence, grouped them and named them. This needed to be validated / challenged from a user point of view. We used the card sorting workshop with a selection of french and dutch speakers. This helped us define a clear information architecture and copy aligned with users expectations.

Once the structure set, we tackled the next steps:
• We started to prioritise the features based on their impact on development and users value.
• We created complete flowcharts: Sign-up/sign-in, cash transfer, personal data update...
• We presented our results to stakeholders and created a user story map / backlog

An additional category related to problems using the product, fast contact and reimbursement issue appeared in 5 out of 14 participants. The word « Issues » is the most commonly used during our test. Then « Urgencies », « SOS » and « Need ». It suggests a real fear of having trouble with the lender.

Following a sketching workshop with the team, we created a full prototype to perform our first thinking aloud user testing. An informative and efficient dashboard, as learned during our users workshops and interviews, we needed to focus on the day to day tasks: how much money do I have left? Did this transaction pass? I want to transfer money to my bank account.

Everything is possible through the dashboard without scroll. In a glimpse of an eye, you can:
• See the amount you have left
• Be informed of reimbursement info and alerts
• See your three last operations
• Go to the billing page
• Do a cash transfer

The Mobile Offer squad was the group's pilot on two topics:
• First autonomous squad running on Agile methodology with Scrum framework.
• Project pilot on Mobile toolchain implementation: scope determination, analysis and deployment in collaboration with Fortis and IT management.

Development challenges:
• We started this project from scratch with no legacy.
• Our team was the first one in Alphacredit with UX/UI designer as well as mobile front-end developers.
• We crafted a solution together to allow data to navigate between back-end IT systems and front-end.

The Cetelem - AlphaCredit app project has been a huge success. As of today, we onboarded more than 47% of the targeted portfolio in the app within a year and the after-sales department was able to relocate some of their resources to other portfolios since we observed a decrease in calls.

User satisfaction has never been so high, we are happy today to have a rating of 4.8 on the App store and 4.7 on the Play store. The Agile way of working is now validated and fully deployed with the creation of new squads. Thanks to the collaboration between the app squad and BNPPF Paris, Cetelem-AlphaCredit Belgium is now officially labelled Digital Factory.