DiscoveryDesign

4.9

Monobank

The first in Ukraine bank in smartphone

App Store

GooglePlay

Create an easy-to-use, human-oriented neo-bank with no match in Ukraine.

6 475 585

million clients.

Monobank is the first mobile bank in Ukraine without physical branches. It was founded in 2017 by the Fintech Band, and today it reaches over 6 million customers.

Our task was to create an easy-to-use, human-oriented neo-bank, which sounds pretty simple now, but at that time there was no match in Ukraine. As our design team, together with the bank’s development team, began working on the interface design, we faced multiple challenges in the process.

Our cooperation with the bank’s team began long before the creation of monobank - in early 2010. At that time the team was a part of the largest bank in Ukraine - PrivatBank. Over the 7-years cooperation, we have created a number of products for PrivatBank together, which are still successfully operating.

So when former employees of Privat founded FintechBand and decided to create their own product, that would have been significantly different from other available products on the market, they did not hesitate to contact us.

Provide simple and clear onboarding for clients with no need to visit physical offices and go through bureaucratic procedures.
Remove all unnecessary features and leave only those to be used by customers on a daily basis.
Simplify all procedures for obtaining, managing and using bank cards.
Create a super easy but functional interface.

As an ex-CDO in Apple, Jony Ive said:

The hardest thing about design is getting rid of the parts that are not essential.

In other words, this approach always affects the processes and project implementation speed, prioritizing quality result over fast completion. This is exactly what our team had to do and we immediately realized that monobank will become a revolutionary product. We assessed all existing challenges and decided to study the market in detail.

The key to great success of monobank was neither global trends nor even the idea itself, but a founders’ team.

It’s hard to believe, but 5 years ago Ukrainian users couldn’t imagine a bank without branches.

This concept puzzled people rather than drew their attention. But since we were aware of the successful example of banks like Revolut and Monzo, we knew that nothing is impossible, so we took global trends in progressive mobile banking as a foundation for developing monobank.

However, the key to great success of monobank was neither global trends nor even the idea itself, but a founders’ team. It had a huge experience in banking sector, great understanding of the Ukrainian market and its customers. We relied on this knowledge while working on the first application design and targeted the key needs and “pains” of ordinary Ukrainian users.

Researched the competitive environment.
Concidered the hottest trends of international banking.
Identified and prioritized our target groups.
Held in-depth interviews with representatives of these groups and identified their needs and pains.
Created a simple and clear user path from the first interaction to active use.

We overcame numerous challenges on our journey of creating the simplest interface, including multiple tests, dozens of screen versions and functionalities, and of course hours of meetings analysing gigabytes of data.

There were times when we agreed on the final decision only after the fourth round of discussions. But in the end, it was all worth it!

We understood that the simpler the answer, the more likely it would be loved and used. As a result, the first version of monobank mobile app featured a simple yet effective design with a limited set of functionalities. To list a few, it had the fastest digital onboarding, credit card issuance, the easiest payments, transfers, and the best cash back offer in the country. What more is required in our fast-paced world?

main screen

list of contacts

money transfer

bill payment

auto payments

overall

Monobank is currently the fastest growing bank in Ukraine. It has become the first smartphone-based bank, forcing the whole market to play by the new rules.

Today, the simple and concise monobank interface is an example for both world-renowned banks and many other large companies seeking to create a modern mobile application for their customers.