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$coreBoard

Proactively manage credit and financial health

Problem: America has a debt problem- Americans have on average, $51,000 in personal debt. The consumer average national debt has gone up by %25 since the peak of the 2008 Financial Crisis.

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Goal: Design a digital solution that can help the average American to improve their financial health while building their credit score.

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Solution Overview: The proposed digital solution would give users real-time information on their credit score and general financial health. It would also provide specific recommendations on how to improve both metrics.

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Project Duration: 2 weeks​

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Team: 3 members

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Role: Created a mockup and performed web search research.

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Tools: Figma

Process

Needs Finding

We performed web search research to learn more about the debt problem of our target users (low to middle income Americans). We found that the average personal debt is $51k. We also found that that %17 of Americans are financially vulnerable, meaning that they fail to meet most of the CFSI's Financial Health Score™ indicators.

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CFSI Financial Health Score™ indicators:​

  • Spend less than income

  • Pay bills on time

  • Have sufficient liquid savings

  • Have sufficient long-term savings

  • Have a manageable debt load

  • Have a prime credit score

  • Have appropriate insurance

  • Plan ahead for expenses

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Source: CFSI 2018 US Financial Health Pulse

An attractive strategy to avoid debt for some people, might be to avoid the risks of using credit. However, this has negative consequences. Without using credit, one cannot develop a credit score, which makes it impossible to get loans for big-ticket items such as a house or a car. Thus, one must balance their financial health with the risks of using credit, to ensure that they can participate in the financial system.

Comparative Analysis

We analyzed a wide variety of services and products that can help people to maintain financial health and a good credit score.

Key Findings:

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  • Private Sector Sevices such as â€‹corporate financial health advice and personal finance investment services are too expensive for the average consumer.

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  • Public Sector Services such as credit counseling, debt management advice, and debt settlement only provide help when the user already has acquired an unhealthy amount of debt.

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  • Apps provide solutions that can either help people with general financial health or help with their credit score, but no single app provides substantial help with both. For example, Mint provides budget tracking, as well as the user's credit score but does not provide specific actionable information on how to improve it. It also provides only general information on the factors that influence the user's credit score. The Experian Credit Boost does help users to simultaneously address their credit score and financial health to a limited extent; it allows users to increase their FICO 8 credit score by paying off bills that aren't typically related to credit score. However, FICO 9 is the credit score that is most commonly used by lenders.

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Users need an easy-to-afford application that can help them to proactively manage both their credit score and their general financial health. 

Experian Credit Boost report

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Mint credit score report

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Ideation/Mockups

A concept for an app that would allow users to proactively manage both their credit score and general financial health, was created. Mockup screens for this app were designed as a proof-of-concept.

Mock-Ups & Design Concept

$coreBoard- the proposed application, would be hosted by Experian and would provide users with an estimated CFSI Financial Health Score™ based on information from their financial accounts. It would also provide a detailed credit report with all of their credit accounts and their FICO 9 credit score. Users would be given specific recommendations on how to increase their credit score and financial health score based on the criteria for the FICO 9 score and the CFSI Financial Health Score™.

Experian Credit Overview Page

User is provided with the most recent version of their credit report, with their FICO 9 credit score and list of current credit accounts. If $coreboard were to be hosted by Experian, this would not be an issue. Also, it is important to note that checks on one’s credit score do not affect their score unless a lender is performing a hard inquiry. The user is also provided with specific suggestions for how to increase their credit score based on the criteria on which the FICO 9 credit score is judged.

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Account Page

As with most digital financial management tools, $coreBoard would have a page that shows users' transactions for their accounts. Additionally, the account page could be used to track CFSI Financial Health Score™ criteria, based on how the user categorizes their transactions and sets up their accounts. Financial Health Score™ tracking will be elaborated on at the end of the Design Concepts section.

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Financial Health Page

As with most digital financial management tools, $coreBoard would also have a page that shows the user general information about their spending and savings. It would also show the user their CFSI Financial Health Score™. Additionally, the user would be provided with specific suggestions for how to increase their CFSI score, based on the CFSI Financial Health Score™ criteria.

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CFSI Financial Health Score™ Calculation

An important feature of $coreboard is that it would estimate and display the user's CFSI Financial Health Score™. Here's how it would track each factor that makes up the score:

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  • Spend less than income- $coreboard would determine the difference between positive and negative transactions across all of the user’s accounts, including bank accounts.

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  • Pay bills on time- The user could create categories corresponding to each of their bills, and enter the due dates for the bills. $coreBoard could then detect passed-due bills.

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  • Sufficient liquid savings- Users could categorize certain accounts as containing liquid savings. Savings would be measured based on the account balance.

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  • Sufficient long-term savings- Users could categorize certain accounts as containing long term savings. Savings would be measured based on the account balance.

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  • Have manageable debt- $coreBoard could use information from the user's credit report to determine the user’s debt.

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  • Have a prime credit score- $coreBoard would use information from the users’ credit report to determine the user’s credit score.

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  • Have appropriate insurance- Users could categorize certain transactions as related to a specific type of insurance. $coreBoard could determine if the user is missing particular insurance categories.

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  • Plan ahead for expenses- Unfortunately, $coreBoard would not be able to determine if the user had sufficiently planned ahead for expenses.

Next Steps

A significant amount of work would be required if our team were to attempt to make $coreboard commercially available. We would need to conduct user interviews to make sure that our target users believe that the application is useful. We would also need to design all of the screens of the app, create an interactive prototype, and conduct user tests to refine the design of the app. Executing several iterations of design and user testing would be ideal. After producing a satisfactory design, we would then need to sell our idea to Experian. If we were successful, Experian would be responsible for development; the app is heavily dependent on being able to smoothly interface with Experian’s back-end.

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