Chase Autosave: Goals-Based Savings

Role
Lead product designer (E2E web experience)
Product designer of 3 (Native)

Team
Chase Digital Wealth Management

Autosave: Goals-Based Savings allows Chase customers to set savings goals with recurring transfers, as well as the frequency and amount they’d like to contribute to them, all within their savings account. The is an enhancement to the original Autosave feature (released January 2019).

This experience is part of Chase’s Goals and Financial Management initiative focused on improving financial health through saving, spending, borrowing, and planning & guidance.

Native: wireflow, prototype; Web: wireflow, prototype

Problems

Lack of trust and transparency with banks
Hidden overdraft fees make it undesirable for retail customers to keep money within a savings account.
—Research conducted by in-house research team

Many Americans find money management complicated
40% of Americans would struggle to come up with even $400 to pay for an unexpected bill (Source)

Approach

How do we take the existing Autosave feature and transform it to an experience that helps retail customers build up sufficient savings for emergencies and short term personalized goals?

Archetype: Reactives

1 of 3 archetypes summarized by UX researcher focused on Chase’s Goals and Financial Management initiative

Our target audience “Reactive,” especially ones with lower financial security knowledge, require support for major behavioral change.

—Beliefs and behaviors

Minimal involvement in money management
Expect Chase to provide judgment-free guidance with a supportive approach that is flexible with their financial situation

—Pain points

Patronized with facts rather than being given direction
Financial planning without support
Being put in a dire financial situation by Chase through hidden fees

Objectives

Business (by end of 2020)

Increase customers financial resiliency:
- 3 million total enrolled
- $3 billion saved through Autosave
- 250k customers who have 1 month+ of expenses in their safety net folder
Increase customer’s planning mindsets
- 750k customers who have at least one actively contributed goal set up by end of 2020
Increase engagement and tenure of customer relationship
Increase savings account deposit balances and net new savings accounts

User experience

Make money management and onboarding as seamless as possible while safeguarding our customers from financial hardship
Build up our customer’s confidence by offering constructive guidance
Establish trust with our customers through being transparent about fees and legal obligations around the usage of savings accounts

Jobs to be done

See a simplified view of my full financial picture
Help me weigh short term flexibility with long term security

Understand the best next steps when my situation changes due to planned or unplanned events

Screen Shot 2021-01-22 at 4.03.01 PM.png

Issues with Classic Autosave

Focus is upon the total amount saved, along with the management of rules
No reflection upon one’s holistic savings and actual amount
No guidance on how to improve one’s finances

**Before: Classic Autosave dashboard on chase.com**

**Before: Classic Autosave rule on chase.com**

Challenges & constraints

Challenges upon the design team (of 3 product designers and 2 content strategists)

The design team was formed 2 weeks (1 sprint) prior to start of grooming schedule
Limited to generative qualitative research due to time constraint to meet deadlines for grooming
Designs delivered needed to go through approval processes with internal platform design and product teams (web and mobile), legal counsel and accessibility team
Designs delivered were caught between the migration between the old to new design systems

Technical constraints

Large amount of effort focused on fixing existing bugs to support incoming features
Lack of capacity to suppress features from Classic Autosave while building new infrastructure for the enhancement

Stakeholder challenges

Conflict of interest between platform product owners, former and current Autosave product owners

One time transfer explorations - Originally not part of Goals-Based Savings enhancement - This exploration led to its prioritization as a feature after my departure from the project — One time transfer explorations
- Originally not part of Goals-Based Savings enhancement
- This exploration led to its prioritization as a feature after my departure from the project

Future Start Date explorations - Originally part of Goals-Based Savings enhancement - Descoped due to exploration showing large areas of impact — **Future Start Date explorations**
- Originally part of Goals-Based Savings enhancement
- Descoped due to exploration showing large areas of impact

Solution

Aligning with the mental modal of separating money for different purposes into buckets
Easily tracking money allocated towards different purposes
Establishing trust with our users through transparency on fees

The holistic savings dashboard reflects:

The current balance of accounts and each goal
The progress made towards goals
“Everything else,” where money not assigned to a specific goal belongs and transfer rules that are active, paused, or completed

We have introduced a safety net goal, guiding users to set money aside to cover large unexpected expenses (e.g. unemployment).

Users also have the flexibility to create a custom goal, saving with specific purposes, or just start saving, saving without a specific purpose.

The experience allows users to set a minimum checking account balance before transfer rules pauses. This prevents our users from over-drafting their checking account, thus establishing trust with our users.

Creating transparency on fees associated with withdrawals and transfers out of savings accounts by showing:

A free transfer count specific per savings account
End date of the acccount’s monthly statement period
$5 fee for each transfer out after hitting their free limit of 6
Legal obligation to convert savings into checking accounts once the limit is reached

Metrics

Enrollment

1.7 million → 3+ million users
(↑76% in a year)

Safety net (3 months after launch)

$5.2 million saved
38% of all goals
$631 average balance

Amount saved

$1.5 billion → $4.5+ billion saved
(↑200% in a year)
12% increase in total amount saved
(1 month after launch)
Customers saved on average 15% more using Autosave (November 2019 - 2020)

Impact & Recognition

Impact
3+ million enrolled users (Nov 2020)
(Eligible to 4.8+ million retail customers with checking & savings accounts)

Recognition
Forbes, Business Insider, PR Newswire

Autosave is on track for greater adoption under a COVID-19 landscape

91% of Autosave users agree that it is a convenient way to save
83% said that it holds them accountable to their savings goals
84% plan to continue to use the tool as part of their approach to savings next year
77% agree that Autosave helps them feel like they are staying on track to meet savings goals.

Based on a Chase survey fielded between Oct 20-31 & Nov 9-10, 2020 among 1,500 total respondents ages 18-65 comprised of Chase customers (750 respondents) and non-Chase customers (750 respondents).

Customer feedback

Users feel empowered to save through its flexibility to set multiple goals

“I love that I can set savings goals for so many different frequencies and amounts. Love the freedom of it. I’m savings $x a day for future kids—just the amount of a cup of coffee but it’s adding up and making me feel so much better about taking control of my finances. Seeing my savings grow makes me feel empowered.”

People love the automatic nature

“This feature makes it very simple to save systematically. I don’t have to think about it. I can set it once and forget it.”