Sberplus goal‑based savings
Sberplus goal‑based savings
Sberplus is a service concept that helps people move toward a financial goal step by step. It does not disrupt their everyday way of life and remains a useful tool at different stages of a person’s financial life.
- Brief
- Sber
- Role
- project leadership, research, interface design
- project leadership
- research
- interface design
- Format
Not an official Sber product.
Context
Banking products have learned to handle individual tasks well: paying for a purchase, transferring money, taking out a loan. But as tools that help improve financial well‑being over a longer horizon, banking services do not work for most people.
The goal of the project was to create a service that helps people reach their goals, does not disrupt their everyday way of life, and teaches useful financial habits.
The main problem for such a service is the gap in the scenario between desire and action. A goal may be present in a person’s life, but few people actually reach it. Because they cannot change their habits, the person falls back into the vicious circle of current spending, postponing a goal that is genuinely important and necessary for them.
Research
Research context
We conducted 11 in‑depth interviews with participants aged 30 to 50. At the beginning, we did not have a ready‑made segmentation beyond age. We needed to understand how people generally relate to financial planning.
The same pattern appeared again and again: saving works when there is a goal and a clear timeframe for reaching it. But the first step scares many people – they simply do not know where to start. The whole future service concept grew out of this insight.
In parallel, we studied local and international fintech services for personal finance management.
Persona
After the interviews, it became clear that all participants could be divided into two groups: those who save and those who spend. The first group already knows how to set goals and reach them, so it was not a priority for the concept. The second group became our target audience.
Max is a composite image of the target audience. He earns money, but it runs out quickly because his spending has no system and there is no consistent goal‑setting. His financial planning horizon is short or absent altogether.
Key insights from interviews
A specific goal motivates more strongly than the general idea of saving
The idea that “you need to save” does not work. When there is no specific goal, money goes toward everyday spending.
A distant horizon does not sustain motivation well
The farther away the goal is, the higher the chance of giving up and continuing to live at the usual pace.
The hardest moment is the first step
The hardest part is starting. People are not ready to change themselves for the task all at once. If there is no positive experience, there is no belief that it can work.
Insight synthesis
Using JTBD, we identified one main job for the service: to turn a goal into a realistic plan and reach it. We grouped the interview insights by the four forces of behavior change: what pushes a person toward a new service, what attracts them, what creates anxiety, and what keeps the old habit in place.
Hypothesis
If finance management starts with a close and achievable goal, the bank can build not a one‑off scenario with the client, but a long‑term relationship around their financial goals.
The hypothesis was this: new behavior needs to be launched through an achievable goal with a short horizon. A person takes the first step, sees progress, gets confirmation that they can manage it, and gradually forms a new useful routine.
Savings scenario map
The scenario map appeared while we were assembling the future service. It helped us break the user journey into steps and see where the service could create real value, and where it could easily lose the user’s attention.
We identified two weak points. The first was the first introduction to the service: there is a concern that it will be difficult or that another unsuccessful experience will happen. The second was the moment after the goal is reached. A void appears: if it is not filled, the useful habit that has only just formed can be lost.
Product idea
The research led to a simple conclusion: a long planning horizon is hard to maintain. That is why we made a simple material goal the entry point – buying a phone, which is often paid for with a loan.
The scenario was designed inside Sberbank Online and could begin where the user already has purchase intent. In 2019, such an entry point could have been the partner scenario “Beru! ”: the user chooses a phone, and Sberplus offers a clear way to reach the purchase through saving.
Within this idea, there were four interface decisions.
A goal instead of a loan
Entry into the product begins with an existing desire to buy a simple material item. The user chooses a product and immediately sees a new way to reach it.
A clear savings plan
After the goal is selected, the service shows a plan for reaching it: how long to save, and how much to set aside so the user does not disrupt their usual way of life.
The first step without extra effort
So the person can immediately see that the first contribution toward the goal has already been made, the service offers to use bonuses as initial capital. Starting not from zero is easier: the user can already see progress, even if it is small.
All money in one context
The home screen brings together the full financial picture, and the saving process becomes part of the everyday routine.
Development and product value
The strength of the concept is that the service starts its relationship with the user through a simple and quickly achievable goal, and then guides them toward larger financial scenarios.
This way, a person learns to manage money not in theory, but in practice: they set a goal, take the first step, see progress, reach the result, and move on to the next goal.
For the user, this is a way to gradually learn how to solve financial tasks without disrupting their everyday way of life.
For the bank, this is an opportunity to support the client at different stages of their financial life: from the first small goal to major long‑term products.