Rethinking Banking for Mzansi: My Journey Through the ABSA Hackathon

Back in early 2023, I found myself in one of those long ABSA queues in Sandton – you know, the kind that make you question every life choice. That frustration eventually led to something bigger: a hackathon entry that became a deep dive into how we can make banking work better for ALL South Africans, not just the digitally savvy ones living in urban areas.

This project taught me more about inclusive design than any textbook ever could. Here's how we tackled the challenge of making banking accessible across 11 languages, varying tech literacy, and a country where your gogo might still prefer cash but your younger brother lives on his phone.

The Reality Check

The Numbers: 59 million banked South Africans
The Challenge: 31% still rely primarily on branches
The Opportunity: 3,800+ physical locations still serve as community hubs
What I Learned: Just because someone has a smartphone doesn't mean they trust mobile banking. Cultural context matters more than tech specs.
My Goal: Make branch visits feel less like a chore and more like getting help from someone who actually gets your situation.

STEP 1: DEFINE

Getting clear on what we're actually solving (and for whom)

The Problem I Couldn't Ignore

"How might we design banking experiences that respect South Africa's diversity while actually reducing friction, rather than just digitizing the same broken processes?"
Honest moment: My first instinct was to build an app that would solve everything. Classic designer mistake. It took talking to actual users (not just my tech-savvy friends) to realize that the solution needed to work for someone who might prefer Afrikaans, has limited data, and sees the bank teller as a trusted advisor, not an obstacle to digital adoption.

Business Reality

ABSA and other major banks are caught between a rock and a hard place: digital transformation pressure vs. customer preference for human interaction.

The constraint: Reduce operational costs without alienating loyal customers who built relationships over decades.

Success Metrics

Reduce wait times: From 23 minutes to under 15
Increase satisfaction: 6.2 to 8.0/10 (being realistic here)
Language inclusivity: Support for 9 languages (started ambitious, scaled back)
Task completion: 85%+ for users 55+

What I Discovered

This wasn't just about making things digital. It was about preserving the human elements that make banking feel safe while removing the pain points that waste everyone's time. The challenge was finding that sweet spot.

STEP 2: RESEARCH

Getting out of my comfort zone and into real banking queues

What I Actually Did (vs. What I Planned)

Plan: Conduct 50 interviews across 5 provinces in 6 weeks.
Reality: Managed 28 meaningful conversations across JHB, Cape Town, and one weekend trip to Polokwane. Sometimes research doesn't go according to plan, and that's okay.

Branch Observations

Spent probably too many hours in bank queues with a notebook (and got some weird looks).

Key insight: The queue isn't just waiting time – it's social time. People catch up, discuss community issues, and actually prefer certain tellers they trust.

Customer Conversations

Spoke with everyone from entrepreneurs in Soweto to retired teachers in Stellenbosch. Most enlightening conversations happened over coffee, not in formal interview settings.

Surprise finding: Language preference isn't just about understanding – it's about feeling respected.

Staff Insights

Bank staff were surprisingly candid about their frustrations. They want to help customers but spend most of their time on paperwork and explaining the same processes repeatedly.

Aha moment: Staff satisfaction and customer satisfaction are deeply connected.

Research Process

What I Learned (Sometimes the Hard Way)

The Digital Divide is More Nuanced Than I Thought
  • 35% of users have smartphones but prefer branch banking for "important" transactions
  • Trust is built through relationships, not features
  • Data costs still matter – a lot
  • Interface language preference varies by transaction type
Cultural Context Rules Everything
  • Banking is often a community activity, especially in townships
  • Elderly customers aren't "resistant to change" – they value proven reliability
  • Financial decisions often involve extended family input
  • Status and respect matter as much as efficiency
"You young designers think we don't understand technology. We understand it fine. We just don't trust it with our pension money." - Aunty Susan, 67, Khayelitsha
My biggest assumption shattered: I thought multilingual meant just translating the interface. Actually, it means understanding that some concepts don't translate directly, and some cultural contexts require completely different approaches to information hierarchy and trust-building.
Language Reality Check
English isiXhosa isiZulu Afrikaans Sesotho Setswana Sepedi
Started with 11 languages, realized quality over quantity mattered more

STEP 3: ANALYSIS & PLANNING

Making sense of messy research and finding patterns

Meet the People Behind the Data

TM

Thabo Mthembu

Age: 34 | Lives: Roodepoort | Languages: isiZulu, English

The Reality: Works in IT but still prefers seeing a human for anything involving large amounts of money. Uses mobile banking for quick checks but wants face-to-face confirmation for big decisions.

What he told me: "I can code, but when it's my bond payment, I want to look someone in the eye and know it's done properly."
Design implications: Tech literacy ≠ digital trust. Need seamless handoffs between digital and human touchpoints.
MN

Maggie Naidoo

Age: 63 | Lives: Chatsworth | Languages: English, Tamil

The Reality: Retired principal who's actually quite tech-savvy (runs the school's WhatsApp group) but doesn't trust banking apps with her pension. Values relationships she's built with bank staff over 30 years.

What she taught me: "It's not about the technology being hard. It's about 30 years of knowing that Priya at the counter understands my needs."
Design implications: Focus on preserving human relationships while reducing administrative friction.
SL

Sipho Lebese

Age: 28 | Lives: Limpopo (travels to Polokwane) | Languages: Sepedi, English

The Reality: Runs a small transport business, manages cash flow via mobile money but needs branch visits for business banking, loans, and cash deposits. Travels 45 minutes to nearest branch.

What he needs: "I can't afford to make that trip twice because I forgot documents or the system was down."
Design implications: Preparation and reliability are more important than fancy features.
User Personas Development

The Journey That Changed My Perspective

I initially mapped the journey from a designer's perspective: neat, linear, logical. Then I spent time with real customers and realized their journey is messy, emotional, and often involves multiple people and stops.

Before Leaving Home (The Anxiety Phase)

Current reality: "Do I have all my documents? What if their system is down again? Should I go early or will I waste my whole morning?"

Opportunity: Pre-visit confidence building through preparation tools and realistic wait time estimates.

What I learned: For rural customers especially, a branch visit is a significant time and cost investment. The anxiety is real.

Arrival & Queue Assessment (The Hope/Dread Moment)

Current reality: "How long is this going to take? Do I have time? Should I come back later?"

Opportunity: Clear communication and alternative options based on wait times and transaction complexity.

Insight: People make emotional decisions about whether to stay or leave within the first 2 minutes of arriving.

Getting Help (The Trust-Building Phase)

Current reality: Either great (you get someone who knows you) or frustrating (explaining your situation from scratch to someone who seems rushed).

Opportunity: Better staff preparation and customer context, without sacrificing privacy.

Walking Away (The Reflection Moment)

Current reality: "Did I really need to come here for this? Will I remember what they told me?"

Opportunity: Clear next steps and educational content that builds confidence for future self-service.

Customer Journey Insights

STEP 4: DESIGN

Turning insights into solutions (with several iterations)

Design Principles That Actually Mattered

Honest moment: My first design principles were very pretty and completely generic. After user feedback, I had to get real about what would actually make a difference in South African banking.
What I Learned to Prioritize
  • Confidence over speed: People need to feel sure about their actions
  • Choice over force: Digital assistance, not digital replacement
  • Context over features: Solutions that fit real life, not ideal scenarios
  • Relationships over efficiency: Preserve what people value about human interaction
The Solution Strategy
  • Smart preparation: Help people come ready, not just show up
  • Transparent queuing: Real information about wait times and complexity
  • Assisted self-service: Technology that makes staff more helpful, not less needed
  • Contextual education: Learning opportunities built into transactions
Queue Intelligence

Not just wait times, but "come back at 2pm for a 5-minute wait" recommendations

Preparation Assistant

Transaction-specific document checklists and step-by-step prep guides

Cultural Concierge

Matching customers with staff based on language and cultural preferences (when possible)

Progressive Trust

Gradually building digital confidence through positive experiences

STEP 5: PROTOTYPING

Building to learn, not to impress

Prototype Evolution (What Actually Worked)

Started with high-fidelity mockups because they look impressive. Quickly learned that paper prototypes in a real bank queue teach you more about user needs than any beautiful Figma file.

Paper & Conversations

Sketched basic flows on paper and tested them with 12 people in actual bank queues. Security guards were initially suspicious, but customers were surprisingly generous with feedback.

Key insight: People's mental models of "preparation" were very different from my assumptions.

Interactive Prototypes

Built clickable prototypes in Figma and tested with families (kids helping parents, grandparents asking questions). Learned more from these sessions than any formal usability test.

Reality check: Voice navigation was popular in concept, challenging in practice with ambient noise.

Wizard of Oz Testing

Simulated the "smart queue" system manually for a few days, updating wait times by hand. Discovered that accuracy mattered more than real-time updates – people prefer honest "15-20 minutes" over optimistic "5 minutes" that becomes 25.

Prototype Evolution

STEP 6: TESTING

Learning from real people in real situations

Testing Reality vs. Research Plans

Planned: Controlled usability sessions in 3 cities with 30 participants
Actually did: 23 sessions across JHB and Cape Town, plus informal testing with family and friends. Sometimes guerrilla research in mall parking lots teaches you more than lab conditions.
What I Measured
  • Task completion: Can people actually do what they came to do?
  • Emotional response: Do they feel more confident or more frustrated?
  • Trust indicators: Would they use this with their own money?
  • Cultural comfort: Does it feel "for them" or "for other people"?
Results That Surprised Me
  • Task completion: 73% → 87% (better than expected)
  • Time to complete: Actually increased by 5% initially (people were more thorough)
  • Confidence score: 6.1 → 7.8/10
  • Return intention: 89% said they'd use it again
"This feels like someone actually thought about how I do things, not how they think I should do things." - Participant from Mitchells Plain
"I like that it doesn't make me feel stupid for wanting to talk to a person. Sometimes these apps make you feel like you're doing something wrong if you don't go all digital." - 58-year-old participant
My biggest learning: When people said the system was "slow," they didn't mean technically slow. They meant it took time to build confidence. And that was actually okay – better slow and sure than fast and anxious.
Testing Results

STEP 7: LAUNCH

From hackathon concept to implementation reality

Implementation: How Things Actually Went

Full transparency: This started as a hackathon entry that got attention from ABSA's innovation team. The "launch" was really a pilot program in 3 branches, with lots of iteration along the way. Not every great idea survives contact with organizational reality, but some do.

Pilot Phase (Months 1-4)

Started small: 3 branches in Sandton, Bellville, and Polokwane

  • Basic mobile app for preparation and queue management
  • Simple kiosks for check-in and document verification
  • Staff training focused on cultural sensitivity
  • Support for English, isiXhosa, and Afrikaans (scaled back from original 11)
Reality check: 67% user adoption (not the 80% we hoped), but satisfaction scores were high

Learning & Iterating (Months 4-8)

What we adjusted: Pretty much everything based on real usage data

  • Simplified the app after seeing people ignore half the features
  • Added SMS notifications for those without smartphones
  • Redesigned kiosks based on accessibility feedback
  • Created paper backup systems for when tech fails
Key learning: Backup systems aren't plan B, they're plan A for building trust

Expansion (Months 8-12)

Scaling carefully: 15 branches with refined systems

  • Integrated feedback loop between digital and human touchpoints
  • Added community feedback sessions
  • Started training program for other banks interested in the approach
Current status: Still running in pilot branches, with plans for wider rollout pending budget approval

STEP 8: ITERATION

What I'm still learning from ongoing usage

Ongoing Learning (The Project That Keeps Teaching)

Patterns I Didn't Expect
  • Intergenerational usage: Young people using the app to help elderly family members prepare for visits
  • Community network effects: When one person in a community starts using it, adoption spreads through social connections
  • Staff advocacy: Tellers became the biggest promoters because it helped them help customers better
  • Trust transfer: People trust digital tools more when introduced by trusted humans
Ongoing Improvements
  • Quarter 2: Added voice messages in local languages (turns out people prefer listening to reading instructions)
  • Quarter 3: Community liaison program (local community leaders help introduce the system)
  • Quarter 4: Integration with local spaza shops for document printing and basic support
  • 2024: Exploring how this model could work for other service industries
"My daughter showed me the app, but I still like coming to the branch. Now I just don't have to worry about wasting my whole morning here." - Regular customer, 8 months in
What I'm still figuring out: How to measure success when the goal isn't to eliminate human interaction, but to make it more meaningful. Traditional digital metrics don't capture the full value.

What Actually Happened vs. What I Hoped

32% Reduction

Average transaction time
(Target was 40%, but 32% is still meaningful)

7.8/10

Customer satisfaction
(Up from 6.2, target was 8.5)

127% Increase

Positive feedback about branch visits
(This surprised everyone)

83%

Task completion for 55+ users
(Target was 85%, working on it)

The metric that mattered most: 78% of users said they felt "more confident about banking" after using the system. That wasn't even something we initially planned to measure, but it became the most important indicator of success.

The Interface That Emerged

These aren't the polished screens I started with. They're the ones that actually worked after months of iteration with real users in real branches.

Mobile App Interface Branch Interface Complete Interface

What This Project Taught Me About UX

Things I Got Right (Eventually)
  • Starting with people, not personas: Real conversations beat assumption-based user profiles every time
  • Designing for trust, not just usability: In financial services, emotional comfort matters as much as task completion
  • Embracing constraints: Data costs, language diversity, and infrastructure limitations weren't problems to solve but realities to design for
  • Measuring what matters: User confidence turned out to be more predictive of success than traditional UX metrics
Mistakes I'm Still Learning From
  • Overestimating appetite for digital: Just because someone can use technology doesn't mean they want to for everything
  • Underestimating cultural nuance: Language support isn't just translation – it's understanding different cultural approaches to financial decision-making
  • Perfect vs. good enough: Spent too much time polishing features that users found unnecessary
  • Implementation reality: Banking technology moves slowly for good reasons, and that's something to design around, not fight
The biggest shift in my thinking: Good UX in emerging markets isn't about bringing "global best practices" to local markets. It's about understanding local contexts so deeply that you create better solutions than anywhere else in the world.
"This project changed how I think about inclusive design. It's not about making one solution work for everyone – it's about creating systems that respect how different people prefer to do things." - Me, reflecting after 18 months
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