Sicredi Serrana
Strategy and innovation in the banking universe
Creation of new products that go beyond a bank
Exploring how a financial institution could evolve beyond traditional banking by identifying new opportunities, behaviors, and services aligned with its community needs.
Sicredi Serrana wanted to understand future opportunities beyond financial products. The challenge was to explore emerging trends, user needs, and new business possibilities to guide strategic decisions and innovation initiatives.
Department
Banking
Team structure
Senior UX Designer (me)
Middle UX Designer
Project duration
13 weeks/2021
Executive Summary
Situation
Sicredi Serrana was looking to expand its role beyond traditional financial services and understand how it could create new value for its members and community. The project focused on identifying behavioral trends, opportunities, and future scenarios.
Initiative
I led the discovery phase of a strategy and innovation project based on Design Thinking and Double Diamond methodology. I facilitated research activities, stakeholder sessions, interviews, and workshops to uncover opportunities and define strategic directions.
Impact
Delivered a strategic opportunity map based on user insights and market research.
Identified new service opportunities beyond traditional banking products.
Research insights supported the creation of future initiatives and innovation projects.
Contributed to the development of a broader vision of banking as a community ecosystem.
The research direction helped influence future initiatives, including the development of Sicredi Serrana’s community-focused headquarters and educational programs.
Project phases
The project was divided into four crucial stages: initial field research, market and trends, direct contact with users and business key points, and finally the creation of future directions.
Market immersion
and trends
Contact with user
end and customers
Results
Understanding the cooperative market
A cooperative market is a type of economic enterprise where a group of people come together to carry out economic activities for mutual benefit, based on principles of cooperation and democracy. To begin our understanding of this market, we conducted interviews to understand the cooperative market, what motivates customers to join this type of service, and what the differences and advantages are compared to a traditional banking. We observed that, even in this initial interview process, with the advancement and accelerated transformation of the digital age, new demands have emerged, and the banking sector has been investing in areas that are no longer restricted to finance, and user motivations have followed suit.
Access to credit and consumer goods
Obtaining loans and other resources for professionalization.
Feeling of “owning”
You become not only a customer, but also a partner in an organization.
Democratic decision making
Decision-making power, voting and having equal weight in assemblies.
Participation in results
All monetary surpluses for the period are distributed among the members.
Higher yields
Due to the tax exemption, it offers services with a better rate of return.
Commitment to the community
Financial support, training courses, everyone wins.
Differentiated service
Treatment based on respect and acceptance.
Raised trends
Beyond Banking
Beyond Banking can be defined as a new business model, where banking institutions offer services and other differentiators that go beyond the traditional, and consumers receive these different services through an ecosystem of various providers (via API)
Banking
It is the movement of people into financial institutions with the purpose of inserting people from less favored social classes into the financial system.
The “I” as a focus
People emerged from a pandemic eager to refocus on themselves, and brands have gained the opportunity to help them take the center of the stage in the years to come.
Hyper Fatigue
Consumers will try not to be distracted by overload and just connect with what makes sense
Local Consumption
Consumers focusing on shopping local in search of environmental and financial benefits
Interview Stage
There were 32 in-depth interviews were held, covering general data, age groups, lifestyles, interests, brand and consumer relationships, social causes, connections and brands, applications, services and benefits. The interview were carried out with the cooperative and non-members. Among the different topics, we can highlight between tracks and lifestyle:
Young people
They solve most daily activities digitally.
Most lifestyle habits have an associated digital platform.
Middle age
They have fluid behaviors, are digital, and value the ease of digital.
They value self-care activities and focus on a more comfortable lifestyle, which is, they seek higher quality in products and services.
Seniors
They want to enjoy their time with greater quality.
They miss social ties and are afraid that they will be lost.
They seek to modernize themselves technologically to survive the new world, but they still feel insecure.
Lifestyle is not necessarily related to age. We live in an era of fluid generations, which are contaminated by each other's behavior.
In general, lifestyle is closely linked to physical and mental well-being. Therefore, consumption habits have focused on quality of life.
Another relevant habit present in all generations is the use of streaming to watch series and films. In that case, entertainment is a source of culture and information, but also a family/friends/couple reunion.
Especially after the pandemic, people have sought mobility. Therefore, they seek to solve pending issues with less bureaucracy and delay, freeing up time for personal activities.
Workshop with the client
After the interviews findings, we presented the material collected so far to the client, connecting the interviewee's responses with the market trends. We then conducted a workshop of polarities with the aim of understanding where Sicredi was at the present moment and where it would like to be in the future.
Data crossing
We cross-referenced the collected materials and managed to identify 4 lifestyles, which we adopted as identified tribes. These tribes brought an insight into the lifestyle of each of them and the unique opportunities for Sicredi Serrana's business.
Homemade
Entertainment and Leisure
House / Home / Construction
Pet
Opportunities
Entertainment and Leisure: Platform for promoting local events with exclusive discounts on products and events for people residing in the mountain region
House/home/construction: Discount on interior design and architecture services and catalog with trusted local professionals.
Pet: At home veterinary services that offer the purchase of medicines with discounts on them.
Self-care
Mental health
Physical Health
Experiences
Opportunities
Mental health: Have the right to therapy sessions per month, in person (with local professionals and with the option of home care) or online.
Physical health: Customized check-up exam packages as needed, for example: heart, diabetic, women's health, etc.
Experiences: Dissemination/carrying out content exchange events such as lectures, immersions and workshops on technology, the environment, social networks, internet, etc.
Practical
Customization
Transport
Mental health
Opportunities
Personalization: Price comparison services for niche products according to preference. example: books and films.
Transport: Monthly road transport packages for students who live in one city and study/work in another.
Personalized transportation for medical appointments, travel between cities, etc.
Mental health: Have the right to therapy sessions per month, in person (with local professionals and with the option of home care) or online.
Traveler
Experiences
Travel
Mental health
Opportunities
Experiences: Dissemination/carrying out content exchange events such as lectures, immersions and workshops on technology, the environment, social networks, internet, etc.
Tourism: Partnership with a tourism agency and construction of tourist routes according to lifestyle and preferences, which may or may not encourage local tourism.
Entertainment and Leisure: Personalized leisure activity kit according to your lifestyle (trails for nature lovers and travelers, table games for those who are more homely.
Results
This project was conducted based on the double diamond, a learning and innovation method used to apply design thinking to solve problems and to encourage companies to innovate. We carried out the first phase, which is the discovery/diverge stage. The next steps were carried out at later period with other teams within the Ilegra company, due to the client budget availability, but the results were positive with the initial research, leading up to the creation of the actual projects. Based on the tribes presented and ideas for opportunities, Sicredi took the initiative to build its own headquarters, to facilitate the implementation of these projects and bring the public closer to the company.
Construction of its own administrative headquarters
The headquarters will have spaces for events and cultural actions and a leisure area for the community.
“Building the future through professional qualification”
Project qualifies young people for the job market free of charge
Sicredi Serrana, with 186 thousand members and R$15.3 billion in managed resources, presented a record performance in the first half of 2024
The cooperative recorded fundraising of R$1.2 billion, 66% more than the same period of the previous year, highlighting its resilience and commitment to the community.