Dylan's Saving Squad
Principality Building Society
In the UK, 38% of adults wouldn’t be able to cover an emergency £500 bill, and there’s clear evidence showing a link between developing a ‘savings mindset’ in childhood and being more financially confident as an adult.
In response, PDR designed, prototyped and launched a new savings account, which introduces money skills, starts conversations at home and inspires a new generation of savers in a fun and accessible way.
This work has also served as the basis for a strategic partnership building a human-centred design approach within Principality Building Society.
Working with PDR has given in-depth insight into the challenges families face when trying to save and educate their children about money. It has allowed us to continually explore exciting new ways to meet their needs better, prototyping and testing concepts with real people to develop our overall vision for our children’s propositions
Senior Propositions Manager | Principality Building Society
FAMILY SAVING RESEARCH
Creative user-research workshops with parents and grandparents uncovered their financial priorities and how these changed as children grew up. Along with desk research into trends and mystery shopping with competitor providers we discovered that adults struggle to act as the good example they want to be when it comes to saving, and needed support.
PROTOTYPING PROPOSITIONS
This inspired a range of concepts that were refined collaboratively by us and Principality, identifying which met user and business needs best. Animated storyboards allowed staff and customers to feedback on concepts and select the most promising for development. To test it further we mocked up a branch within PDR and built physical and digital prototypes allowing us to quickly and cheaply create an immersive service experience to gather customer feedback before investing a lot of time or money.
The potential is huge and gives kids a real understanding of what is going on [with their money], using modern technology they do understand
Parent | User Research Participant
IMPACT
‘Dylan’s Saving Squad’ was launched in 2020 as the new face of Principality's strategy for children’s accounts and financial education, with a dedicated children’s app based on PDR’s design. Other aspects include the ‘Learner Earner’ account that encourages parents and carers to save alongside their children, which led to new savings balances brought into the society.
