Digital Investment Gifting for Minors
Enabled a new digital revenue stream by designing a compliant mobile-first investment gifting experience that streamlined minor account creation and reduced onboarding friction within a regulated fintech environment.
Role
Lead Designer, Individual Contributor
Skills
Strategy, Research, Mobile Interaction Design, Prototyping
Timeline
8 weeks
Nov - Dec 2023
Collaborators
Designers, Engineers, Product Team, Legal & Regulatory Teams
Platform
Mobile Native (iOS and Android)
PROBLEM
Tedious onboarding is limiting mutual fund adoption and limiting scalable growth
USER CHALLENGE
Mutual fund investing is hindered by lengthy, compliance-heavy onboarding, with 63–68% of users abandoning investment flows due to complexity. For parents investing on behalf of minors, additional documentation, eligibility requirements, and regulatory checks further increase friction. Traditional gifting options also feel transactional, lacking clear long-term or goal-driven incentives.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
The Indian mutual fund industry manages over £720 billion in assets, yet only 6.7% of households invest despite high awareness. This awareness-to-adoption gap reflects onboarding friction, particularly compliance-heavy Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. Minor accounts require additional guardian validation steps, further increasing complexity and limiting scalability.
CONSTRAINTS
Designing within Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulations for minor investments required simplifying onboarding and reducing drop-offs while maintaining strict compliance, data integrity, and investor protection.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Digital investment gifting is an untapped revenue opportunity in India’s mutual fund ecosystem
💡
Digital investment gifting remains under-leveraged within India’s mutual fund ecosystem, presenting an opportunity to establish goal-based minor gifting as a scalable revenue channel and long-term contributor to SBI Mutual Fund’s assets under management (AUM).
BUSINESS GOALS
Drive measurable growth in minor account adoption while reducing onboarding friction
🚀
Adoption & Conversion
Increase minor account adoption and investment conversion rate through a seamless digital gifting journey.
⏱️
Onboarding Efficiency
Reduce time to complete investment setup through a simplified onboarding journey.
MY PROCESS
The UX thinking behind the solution
View my process
SOLUTION
A guided investment gifting experience
The solution introduces a goal-based gifting journey that simplifies onboarding and makes long-term investing more engaging for children.
DESIGNING HUMAN ONBOARDING
Reducing onboarding friction through guided conversation
Step-by-step conversational prompts simplify complex KYC and investment inputs, making compliance-heavy onboarding easier to complete.
BEYOND TRANSACTIONAL INVESTING
Turning investments into milestone gifts
Investments are centred around milestones such as education, birthdays, or celebrations, transforming mutual funds into meaningful gifts.
FLEXIBLE ONBOARDING
Reducing drop-offs through save-and-resume onboarding
A save-and-resume feature lets users pause the process and complete compliance-heavy steps later, reducing overwhelm during onboarding.
MICRO-ANIMATIONS FOR DELIGHT
Designing transactional flows for gifting delight
Animated gift-wrapping moments add delight and celebration, turning traditional investment onboarding into an emotional gifting experience.
PROMOTING FINANCIAL LITERACY
Age-appropriate dashboards for early financial literacy
Minors can view their investments through simplified, jargon-free visualisations designed to encourage early financial learning.
SIMPLIFYING INVESTMENT PAYMENTS
Multiple payment options for faster setup
Alongside traditional methods, UPI (Unified Payments Interface) enables quick one-time or auto-debit payments through mobile apps widely used across India.
OUTCOMES
Early impact of
the digital investment gifting journey
Following launch, first-month behavioural data was analysed to understand how the gifting experience influenced adoption and onboarding efficiency. Key metrics across minor account creation, investment completion, and onboarding time were tracked to assess early performance.
MINOR ACCOUNT ADOPTION
734 new accounts
New accounts created through the gifting journey, signalling early adoption among parents.
ONBOARDING EFFICIENCY
17minutes
Average investment setup time reduced from 28 mins to 17 mins, indicating streamlined onboarding.
INVESTMENT CONVERSION RATE
32%
734 out of 2294 users successfully completed the investment, indicating strong early conversion.
LEARNINGS
What I learnt about designing regulated fintech experiences
Designing a gifting-led investment journey within a highly regulated financial environment required balancing compliance with an intuitive and emotionally engaging experience. The project showed how thoughtful interaction design can simplify complex financial processes while maintaining trust and regulatory integrity.
Design within regulatory constraints
SEBI compliance requirements shaped the onboarding flow. Simplified inputs, progressive disclosure, and clear explanations helped make compliance-heavy steps easier to complete.
Trust in financial UX
In financial platforms where trust is critical, gifting metaphors, conversational prompts, and celebratory moments helped build user trust while making the journey more meaningful and engaging.
Iterating within evolving financial ecosystems
In regulated financial markets, compliance requirements evolve during product development. Continuous iteration ensured the experience remained aligned while maintaining usability.
This project deepened my understanding of designing financial products where compliance, trust, and usability must be balanced to support confident investment decisions.