From Ideas to Field Tests in 4 Days: A Design Sprint for Refugee-Centered Financial Services

By John Won*, Consulting Associate (BFA) and Peter Kawumi, Former Manager Competitive Strategies (FSD Uganda)

In June 2018, BFA, a global consulting firm led a four-day design sprint for financial service providers (FSPs) to develop and test solutions tailored to over 1.3 million forcibly displaced people (FDPs) in Uganda. This was the latest engagement in a multi-phase program by FSD Uganda and FSD Africa to increase awareness and create financial services for forcibly displaced people. It was the second refugee-focused design sprint in the FSD Network, the first having been held in Rwanda.  Preceding activities included a roundtable discussion with financial service providers in Uganda in December 2017 and a series of customer journey-mapping workshops in Uganda in April 2018. Through these engagements, a number of major FSPs in each market are gaining a better understanding of the needs and capabilities of refugees and identifying pathways to improving financial products and services for refugees as new customers.

Mapping the Financial-access Journey of the Refugee

Applying UX design to help financial service providers in Uganda better serve forcibly displaced people

By John Won, Consulting Associate, BFA

Applying UX design to help financial service providers in Uganda better serve forcibly displaced people

In April 2018, BFA facilitated a series of workshops for six banks – Diamond Trust Bank, Equity Bank, FINCA, Opportunity International, Post Bank, Ugafode – and a mobile network operator – Africell, in partnership with FSD Uganda. We shared research and statistics about the over 1.3 million forcibly displaced people (FDPs) living in the country, based on recent UNHCR data. And we invited the participants to imagine their life not as an employee of a large financial service provider (FSP) in Uganda, but rather to imagine their life as if they were a forcibly displaced person. “Step into the shoes of a refugee,” we instructed them:

Notes from the Frontier: Could Refugee Populations Be Ripe For Financial Inclusion?

As we approached the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement area, we were met with a calm sense of normalcy. People went about their business as usual, men and women tilling farms, children running around playing in school grounds and traders displaying their products at small designated shopping centres within the settlement.