HSBC
Fraud
Warning
The world of scamming is changing at a rapid rate and even more so as technology opens more doors for techniques and avenues for opportunity. I was asked to work on HSBCs future of fraud warning.
I consider this my most serious work and the most important project to date.
Protecting the most vulnerable
Scammers literally do not care as long as they get their money, they will target any person, no matter the customer circumstances; elderly, disabled, depressed, people in problem debt. Everyone is a target and nobody is off limits.
Financial difficulty and suicide
Researching into people in financial difficulty there was a reported link. People who get into financial difficulty are more likely to think about suicide which can lead to taking action if left unchecked.
3X
More likely to think about suicide when in problem debt
420K
People in problem debt
who think about suicide
100K
People in problem debt
that attempt suicide per year
Research
I always make a note of trying to not leave any stones unturned when in the discovery stage and there was plenty to consume and cross reference in terms of general fraud information and the approaches tested by the bank, all varieties of the same approach and an approach adopted by many banks.
Competitors
Looking around at the competitors a lot of banking institutions have similar approaches to informing the customer what to do.
Current HSBC Journey
Current journey was very static, text heavy and relied on customer input for gathering information on the payment to then give feedback with advice. It was hard for the bank to get the correct message across but also protect itself from not giving the legally required information
Two types of warning for two general scenarios
1 Post event
Enforced messaging where the customer is notified of a suspicious payment thats being made either with or without their knowledge, this could be an online payment or at point of sale.
2 Pre event
As the payment is made by the customer, e.g the customer is in the middle of making a bank transfer to someone.
Customer Journey Mapping
Using FigJam we conducted customer journey mapping sessions in a group workshop involving staff from fraud, tech and UX. This meant we could map out all journeys that weren’t covered already and all the different scenarios across the multiple touch points and consider the tech constraints that we also needed to work around for now.
Messaging was key
One of the key things I identified early on is that the current notifications held a lot of information and may also be written in a way where it actually in itself sounds like a scam and not trusted to be interacted with by the customer at first glance.
It also held too much information for people who did believe it was legit and then would decide on it there and then by dissmissing it, however this didnt help our fraud team who would then have to move onto the next stage of the protocol without the customer interacting.
New message didn’t display the information in the notification, instead it invited the customer into the app to receive that information in a safe place where they could trust what they are reading. Also in a more calming delivery yet with urgency.
Red flag concept
Icon blindness
The bank were using the rag status icons for a lot of different scenarios and mainly around technical issues were the customer was hindered or needed to retry, in other cases the technical issue was a blocker and so a red triangle was used. However the customer seen these icons many times over the years and in many circumstances where the situation wasn’t as critical as a fraud warning is.
CURRENT
Error and delay icons
Current icons were overused for all sorts of scenarios
Dedicated symbol for Fraud
My concept was that we needed a symbol dedicated to fraud prevention and that is only seen when the bank talks about the risk of customers money or information around scamming. The red flag is a familiar symbol of danger. This icon would give us the the correct iconography for the appropriate response
