Improve trust & experience for advisers on an alternative investment platform

I managed the UX team to conduct user research, revamp the Design System and UI, and design key client & team management functionalities for financial advisers on an alternative investment platform.

I managed the UX team to conduct user research, revamp the Design System and UI, and design key client & team management functionalities for financial advisers on an alternative investment platform.

I managed the UX team to conduct user research, revamp the Design System and UI, and design key client & team management functionalities for financial advisers on an alternative investment platform.

year

2022

role & Skills

Senior UX designer

Design System, team management

Team size

10 people

1 researcher, 2 designers, 5 devs, 2 BAs

Business background

The traditional balanced investment portfolio has been 60% stocks, 40% bonds for years.

But a growing population of investors are keen to add more alternative investments, ie. investments outside of traditional stocks and bonds, to diversify their portfolio and get better returns.

Some examples of alternative investments are:

Agriculture and Infrastructure
E.g. cattle farms, solar farms, transportation projects
Alternative real estate projects
E.g. data centres, self-storage, healthcare facilities
Private credit, private equity & venture capital
E.g. equity and debt funding for startups, peer-to-peer lending

Traditionally, these investments are only accessible by institutional investors due to their complex nature, high risk and high minimum investments.

iPartners is an Australian fintech startup offering access to these investments to high net worth investors (HNWI) and advisers:

On the other hand, iPartners also has a platform business that white-label this technology to other wealth managers (such as Barrenjoey or overseas wealth managers) who want to open up their alternative investments to individual investors and advisers in Australia.

Business background

The traditional balanced investment portfolio has been 60% stocks, 40% bonds for years.

But a growing population of investors are keen to add more alternative investments, ie. investments outside of traditional stocks and bonds, to diversify their portfolio and get better returns.

Some examples of alternative investments are:

Agriculture and Infrastructure
E.g. cattle farms, solar farms, transportation projects
Alternative real estate projects
E.g. data centres, self-storage, healthcare facilities
Private credit, private equity & venture capital
E.g. equity and debt funding for startups, peer-to-peer lending

Traditionally, these investments are only accessible by institutional investors due to their complex nature, high risk and high minimum investments.

iPartners is an Australian fintech startup offering access to these investments to high net worth investors (HNWI) and advisers:

On the other hand, iPartners also has a platform business that white-label this technology to other wealth managers (such as Barrenjoey or overseas wealth managers) who want to open up their alternative investments to individual investors and advisers in Australia.

Business background

The traditional balanced investment portfolio has been 60% stocks, 40% bonds for years.

But a growing population of investors are keen to add more alternative investments, ie. investments outside of traditional stocks and bonds, to diversify their portfolio and get better returns.

Some examples of alternative investments are:

Agriculture and Infrastructure
E.g. cattle farms, solar farms, transportation projects
Alternative real estate projects
E.g. data centres, self-storage, healthcare facilities
Private credit, private equity & venture capital
E.g. equity and debt funding for startups, peer-to-peer lending

Traditionally, these investments are only accessible by institutional investors due to their complex nature, high risk and high minimum investments.

iPartners is an Australian fintech startup offering access to these investments to high net worth investors (HNWI) and advisers:

On the other hand, iPartners also has a platform business that white-label this technology to other wealth managers (such as Barrenjoey or overseas wealth managers) who want to open up their alternative investments to individual investors and advisers in Australia.

Problems to solve

Financial advisers, a new segment of customers for iPartners, require new functionalities compared to self-directed investors.

  1. Advisers want to seamlessly navigate between different user roles and workspaces

Currently the menu gives more prominence to the investor user role rather than an adviser, and it's not obvious which wealth manager's workspace the adviser is in (iPartners or other white-label platforms).

  1. Advisers are time-poor and want to outsource administrative tasks to their assistants.

Onboarding prior to investments (e.g. submitting verified documents) and after investments (e.g. adding bank account details for distributions), as well as generating periodic reports such as tax statements are tasks that advisers would like to outsource to their assistants.

  1. Meanwhile, advisers want to keep control of essential tasks such as managing clients' investments, and enhance the functionalities to be more user-friendly

Current client list is difficult to use

Advisers find the current client list difficult to use:

  • The UI is difficult to skim and read

  • Not able to quickly find clients by sorting or filtering the columns

  • No graphical overview of each client's portfolio growth

  • Unclear onboarding status of each client

Advisers cannot self-service an account overview of each client for client meetings

Advisers want to self-service each client's account overview and current investments list to make it more convenient, rather than contacting iPartners operations staff.

Below is an initial sketch of the dashboard and investment list concept:

  1. Desk assistants need to onboard client before investments, and continue post-investments onboarding for distributions and tax residency

Pre-investment onboarding consists of tasks such as verifying client's identity and submitting relevant documents. After the account is investable and their adviser has done the investments, assistants continues with post-investment tasks such as supplying bank details for distributions, and updating tax residency.

At the same time, a new Design System is also needed to uplift the look and feel, accessibility and responsiveness of the entire iPartners platform.

Problems to solve

Financial advisers, a new segment of customers for iPartners, require new functionalities compared to self-directed investors.

  1. Advisers want to seamlessly navigate between different user roles and workspaces

Currently the menu gives more prominence to the investor user role rather than an adviser, and it's not obvious which wealth manager's workspace the adviser is in (iPartners or other white-label platforms).

  1. Advisers are time-poor and want to outsource administrative tasks to their assistants.

Onboarding prior to investments (e.g. submitting verified documents) and after investments (e.g. adding bank account details for distributions), as well as generating periodic reports such as tax statements are tasks that advisers would like to outsource to their assistants.

  1. Meanwhile, advisers want to keep control of essential tasks such as managing clients' investments, and enhance the functionalities to be more user-friendly

Current client list is difficult to use

Advisers find the current client list difficult to use:

  • The UI is difficult to skim and read

  • Not able to quickly find clients by sorting or filtering the columns

  • No graphical overview of each client's portfolio growth

  • Unclear onboarding status of each client

Advisers cannot self-service an account overview of each client for client meetings

Advisers want to self-service each client's account overview and current investments list to make it more convenient, rather than contacting iPartners operations staff.

Below is an initial sketch of the dashboard and investment list concept:

  1. Desk assistants need to onboard client before investments, and continue post-investments onboarding for distributions and tax residency

Pre-investment onboarding consists of tasks such as verifying client's identity and submitting relevant documents. After the account is investable and their adviser has done the investments, assistants continues with post-investment tasks such as supplying bank details for distributions, and updating tax residency.

At the same time, a new Design System is also needed to uplift the look and feel, accessibility and responsiveness of the entire iPartners platform.

Problems to solve

Financial advisers, a new segment of customers for iPartners, require new functionalities compared to self-directed investors.

  1. Advisers want to seamlessly navigate between different user roles and workspaces

Currently the menu gives more prominence to the investor user role rather than an adviser, and it's not obvious which wealth manager's workspace the adviser is in (iPartners or other white-label platforms).

  1. Advisers are time-poor and want to outsource administrative tasks to their assistants.

Onboarding prior to investments (e.g. submitting verified documents) and after investments (e.g. adding bank account details for distributions), as well as generating periodic reports such as tax statements are tasks that advisers would like to outsource to their assistants.

  1. Meanwhile, advisers want to keep control of essential tasks such as managing clients' investments, and enhance the functionalities to be more user-friendly

Current client list is difficult to use

Advisers find the current client list difficult to use:

  • The UI is difficult to skim and read

  • Not able to quickly find clients by sorting or filtering the columns

  • No graphical overview of each client's portfolio growth

  • Unclear onboarding status of each client

Advisers cannot self-service an account overview of each client for client meetings

Advisers want to self-service each client's account overview and current investments list to make it more convenient, rather than contacting iPartners operations staff.

Below is an initial sketch of the dashboard and investment list concept:

  1. Desk assistants need to onboard client before investments, and continue post-investments onboarding for distributions and tax residency

Pre-investment onboarding consists of tasks such as verifying client's identity and submitting relevant documents. After the account is investable and their adviser has done the investments, assistants continues with post-investment tasks such as supplying bank details for distributions, and updating tax residency.

At the same time, a new Design System is also needed to uplift the look and feel, accessibility and responsiveness of the entire iPartners platform.

Vision

Help advisers navigate the platform, add assistants who can help with clients' onboarding, and manage their clients' investments easier.

Solutions

  1. Improve the platform navigation on desktop & mobile

1.1. Advisers can switch to different fund managers' workspaces, or switch user roles (adviser or investor) to access the relevant functionalities for each user role

1.1. Advisers can switch to different fund managers' workspaces, or switch user roles (adviser or investor) to access the relevant functionalities for each user role

1.2. Advisers can collapse the menu to save space, and always know which tab they are in thanks to the on-hover menu labels

1.2. Advisers can collapse the menu to save space, and always know which tab they are in thanks to the on-hover menu labels

On desktop, collapse the sidebar into a small column to make the most of space, and create on-hover sidebar labels to help users find the right menu item while the sidebar is collapsed.

1.3. Advisers can clearly differentiate which tabs they need to work on versus which tabs are for their assistants

1.3. Advisers can clearly differentiate which tabs they need to work on versus which tabs are for their assistants

Before: Within each client's account, having 2 sub-menu navigations make it confusing for advisers / desk assistants. Overlap between Personal details, Bank details & TFN, and Onboarding tabs also adds to the confusion.
After: For each client, all information are consolidated into 1 horizontal sub-menu, with adviser-focused tasks of investment management on the left and assistant-focused tasks of administration (e.g. onboarding & reporting) on the right.

  1. Create the desk assistant user roles with permissions for administrative tasks

2.1. Advisers can add or remove desk assistant users from the platform, with multi-factor authentication (MFA) required for security

2.1. Advisers can add or remove desk assistant users from the platform, with multi-factor authentication (MFA) required for security

Advisers can add desk assistants instead of requesting support from iPartners staff

2.2. Advisers can see an overview list of desk assistants, their statuses, last login and access quick actions to edit, delete or suspend them

2.2. Advisers can see an overview list of desk assistants, their statuses, last login and access quick actions to edit, delete or suspend them

  1. Help desk assistants complete client onboarding tasks easier

3.1. Desk assistants can see the client list with clearer onboarding status, and access shortcut actions to complete onboarding

3.1. Desk assistants can see the client list with clearer onboarding status, and access shortcut actions to complete onboarding

Before: The current client list has no sorting or filtering, is difficult to skim and read, and confuses advisers with the multiple onboarding status dots.
After: The new client list shows what each client's onboarding status is, and can be sorted and filtered by columns. An additional action "Complete onboarding" is added at the end of each row if the action is applicable. (Note that details on other columns have been removed to focus on onboarding-related columns).

3.2. For each client, assistants can follow the step-by-step pre- and post-investment onboarding process

3.2. For each client, assistants can follow the step-by-step pre- and post-investment onboarding process

An example user flow of a desk assistant reviews a user's pending onboarding status due to a missing Power of Attorney (POA). The assistant submits the POA and the status changes to waiting to be processed by iPartners.

3.3. Assistants have a clearer view of the Client profile section, with sensitive contact information masked for security

3.3. Assistants have a clearer view of the Client profile section, with sensitive contact information masked for security

Before: The design makes it hard to understand which fields are editable and which are not (for example, all personal details field are not editable after investor has finished identity verification, but it is not obvious from the design). Sensitive contact information is always shown.
After: The new design shows clearly which fields are editable and is neater. Sensitive contact information is masked for security.

  1. Improve the investment management functionalities

4.1. Advisers have a richer and interactive overview of clients' portfolios with data and growth sparklines and sorting and filtering functionalities

4.1. Advisers have a richer and interactive overview of clients' portfolios with data and growth sparklines and sorting and filtering functionalities

Before: The current client list has no sorting or filtering, is difficult to skim and read, and confuses advisers with the multiple onboarding status dots.
After: The new client list shows each client's portfolio growth (illustrated by the sparkline charts and returns %) and can be sorted and filtered by columns (most importantly by portfolio holdings value and number of units held). Additional actions such as Download statements are also added.

4.2. Adviser can have a quick dashboard overview of each client's portfolio with key performance information and upcoming events

4.2. Adviser can have a quick dashboard overview of each client's portfolio with key performance information and upcoming events

The top of the dashboard provides advisers with the key performance metrics and asset allocation for each client, at the overall level (all entities) or at each entity level.

The bottom of the dashboard lists all upcoming events (maturities, distributions, capital calls). There's also a shortcut to edit investors' email preferences if they want to opt out of these email alerts.

4.3. Advisers can also use a clearer design of the current investments & realised investments list for each client

4.3. Advisers can also use a clearer design of the current investments & realised investments list for each client

The top of the dashboard provides advisers with the key performance metrics and asset allocation for each client, at the overall level (all entities) or at each entity level.

4.4. Advisers can browse new deals on the Investment opportunities tab easier with filtering functionality, and the funding % status of each deal

4.4. Advisers can browse new deals on the Investment opportunities tab easier with filtering functionality, and the funding % status of each deal

Before: The current Investment opportunities tab only has filtering by year, and shows no funding status of each deal.
After: The new tab design adds searching of deals by name or deal code, other filters by asset classes and deal status, as well as a funding status for each deal which helps advisers understand if a deal is under- or oversubscribed.

Stakeholder feedback

Natalia Metaute12:34 PM
Thank you for the beautiful designs 🥰 The dashboard is so clear now!
Norman King12:34 PM
Hey team! Great work on the FA project.
Nicola Joynson7:14 AM
Great news, GAF has confirmed they're buying the adviser and desk assistant modules for their platform!

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