TBC Bank · Banking

Mortgages, fully online, in six months

Working alongside McKinsey & Company, we helped TBC Bank take mortgage applications fully online, so people can apply without setting foot in a branch. It became one of the most in-demand products in TBC’s digital banking.

Client: TBC Bank
Sector: Banking
Year: 6 months, 2020
Services: UX researchProduct designPrototyping
Platform: Web
Live product: www.tbcbank.ge (opens in a new tab)

TBC mortgage website on a laptop, showing how to apply for a mortgage online

Outcomes

50K+: people using the mortgage website each month
300+: personal bankers freed from manual work
20+: user flows iterated with the Loan & Risk teams

The challenge

TBC Bank is one of the leading banks in the region, listed on the London Stock Exchange. Mortgages were among its most popular products, but the experience had fallen behind.

More than 5 million people use TBC’s services. Applying for a mortgage still meant visits to a branch and a lot of manual work for bankers. TBC put together a team of leaders in design, research, and loans and risk, and brought in McKinsey’s consultants to change that.

Our role

We joined the project team for six months and were involved in every stage, from research to launch.

Interviews and qualitative personas
Workshops with bankers
Wireframes and a prototype for live user testing
The end-to-end application flow

Research

Personas built from real interviews, and a close look at where bankers lost time.

We used Jobs to Be Done, 4W and 5W1H to uncover what people needed, ran interviews with research partners, and turned them into qualitative personas. With bankers, we worked out key questions to find where their workflow slowed down.

Two qualitative personas with their needs, frustrations and personality traits — Qualitative personas from user interviews.

The application

Personal, compliant and trustworthy, step by step.

01
Loan calculation

Only the inputs needed to generate a tailored offer.
02
Personalised offer

The system checks eligibility and presents a loan people can adjust.
03
Agreement

A formal step that keeps the terms transparent before going further.
04
Collateral

Verifying collateral and declaring additional income sources.
05
Income validation

Income source, type of activity and a signed PDF bank statement.
06
Disbursement

Reviewing the loan terms and scheduling a meeting with a banker.

Wireframes for loan calculation, personalised offer, agreement, collateral, income validation, disbursement and scheduling — The end-to-end application flow, iterated with Loan & Risk to meet strict regulation.

Launch

Planned and delivered in record time for the bank.

The product launched after six months and became one of the most in-demand in TBC’s digital banking. People can now apply for a mortgage without visiting a branch, and bankers spend their time on customers instead of paperwork.