SAKU.id: Improving User Engagement with Mobile Banking Loyalty Program — a UX Research Case

Tools used: Google Slide, Excel, Figma & FigJam

Team Members: Amyra Marlia, Kansathabina, Salicca Ajeng, Alexa Aman

Learning takes a lot of pushing through challenges. As part of Dibimbing’s bootcamp, we were tasked with a case project; short, exhausting, but ultimately a lot of fun. The research went through four stages: the thinking (desk research & methods), the doing (interviews), the finding out (aha! insights), and the what’s next (turning them into recommendations). Here’s a walkthrough of our process. Bear in mind I will use ‘I’ and ‘we’ interchangeably. We did do a lot of the process together (yay teamwork!)

Research Background

A desk study revealed that 60% of Gen Z and millennials in Indonesia already use mobile banking, while 58% rely on e-wallets for daily transactions (Goodstats.id). Their adoption is driven by convenience, speed, and innovative features, with transfers and QRIS being the most frequently used (Markplusinc.com). This shows the need for features that go beyond basic functionality to create deeper engagement, such as loyalty program in mobile banking apps.

The Ultimate Guide to Bank Loyalty Programs: Attract, Retain, and Grow Your Customer Base (Comarch.com)

Research also highlights how gamification can boost user interaction, as seen in Shopee’s in-app games (Taruli et al., 2021). However, poorly designed gamification such as irrelevant rewards, complex mechanics, or too many stacked elements, can frustrate users and even increase dropout rates (Moldstud.com; Nugraha et al., 2024).

In digital banking, the stakes are higher: a loyalty program that feels intrusive could reduce engagement and discourage usage. To explore how gamification can be applied effectively in this context, this study uses SAKU.id, a fictional local bank created as the client in need. Positioned as an innovative and secure mobile bank, SAKU.id aims to compete in a saturated market by introducing a gamified loyalty program tailored for Gen Z and millennial users as a key differentiator. To do so, research needs to be done to find out how such a program can be implemented in a way that feels valuable, seamless, and relevant to users’ daily banking activities.

SAKU.id Visual Branding (By one of our team members, Kansathabina)

I did a lot of the desk research, while the other members are tasked with designing the bank’s visuals and other stuff.

Research Problems

Going off from the research background, we identified several research problems, such as:

• Limited understanding of Gen Z and millennials’ behaviors, preferences, and experiences when using mobile banking services.
• Uncertainty about which gamification elements users actually prefer.
• The potential risk that overly complex or excessive gamification design in a loyalty program could decrease engagement and reduce app usage.

Research Objectives

Several research objectives are formulated in order to clarify what we aim to accomplish in this research, based on the research problems:

• To identify the preferences, needs, and gamification features most relevant in a digital banking loyalty program to increase user engagement and loyalty
• To create a UI/UX design plan for the SAKU.id banking app in the form of recommendations to accommodate a gamified loyalty program based on research findings

Methodology

To gain the a deeper insight from users in a short amount of time, in-depth interview is chosen as a method. We interviewed 4 participants with these criteria:

• Mobile banking users from the age of 18–40 (abiding the case project criteria; Gen Z and Millennials)
• Used a mobile banking app at least once in the week prior to being interviewed (ensuring their experience is recent and updated)

Based on the research problems, we formulated three main research questions, which were then broken down into several interview questions to help find a more detailed answers. We then conducted the interviews separately.

Research Problems turned into Research Questions.

Here is our Interview Questions and Answers, if you’re extra curious.

A brief comparative study is also done to highlight two apps with similar features.

Comparing other apps with similar gamification features; NeoBank and GoPay Coins

Key Insights

Tada! Here are some insights we found in our journey.

Part One

Part Two

I’m going to explain how we found these in the next part.

Affinity Mapping

After interviewing the respondents, we then collectively clustered the interview notes into themes using affinity mapping. This step helped us spot patterns in user quotes and behaviors. From these themes, we pulled out key insights that becomes our guide steps to create a user persona and a journey map. Remember how there were 3 research questions? Each of those is turned into one big section.

Digital Banking Behavior & Experiences

In this section, it is found that users are quite familiar with their digital banking’s features which they mostly use for e-commerce related reasons, asset-transfer related reasons, saldo-checking and cash taking. When asked about their experience using the app, several themes were formed, such as security, usability, visual interface and limitation & transaction process.

Gamification Knowledge & Preferences

From this section, we found that the main factors influencing users’ engagement with gamification features in other apps are accessibility and navigation, rewards, and the time required to complete the activity. Users showed a clear preference for point-based systems, followed by rewards that are both clear and relevant. On the other hand, factors that discouraged users included lengthy completion times, overly complex game mechanics, poor accessibility or navigation, and small or insignificant rewards.

“Jika gamesnya (quest) terlalu complicated dan lama untuk dimainkan, hal tersebut membosankan dan membuang waktu, karena biasanya orang buat bank digital untuk bertransaksi bukan fokus untuk bermain game” -VH, F25

“Cuma kalo kita mau nyari Shopee gamesnya sendiri agak susah sih, kayak kita tuh harus buka dulu terus scroll dulu sampe ngeliat semua produk pelayanannya dia, baru ketemu. (…) Tadi tuh kalo nyari gamenya susah, terus jenis gamenya kebanyakan juga. Apalagi kalo harus dimainin semuanya biar dapet poin. Mendingan difokusin ke satu aja tapi benefitnya bagus” -MK, F25

Most users were indifferent toward badges or ranking systems, unless higher levels offered more substantial rewards and the overall app experience remained comfortable to use. Users also hoped for rewards such as vouchers, discounts and cash rewards.

“Aku sebenernya suka belanja, jadi aku berharap poin yang didapat bisa menjadi potongan harga, kalau dalam bentuk voucher juga bisa tapi sering voucher yang didapet cuman bisa digunakan dengan aplikasi banking tertentu yang membuat aksebilitasnya terbatas dan voucher tidak dapat digunakan, pengennya voucher yang bisa langsung digunakan gitu.”-RA, F24

“Kalo misalkan di Neo, itu kan dia modelnya kalo kita login kita bisa ngumpulin poin, Jadi itu poin itu bisa di convert jadi saldo. Jadi dia bisa nambah saldo. Cuma ya harus sampe 100.000 poin itu ntar jadi 10.000 rupiah. (…) Lebih prefer jadi saldo lah.” -MK, F29

“Tergantung orang sih, kalo dapet kupon pun kupon buat apa belom tentu kepake. Kalo misal ada diskon buat pembayaran PLN per bulan itu menarik. Kalo ada bonus e-wallet, itu menarik. Ya yang paling umum dipakai masyarakat umum.” -T, M38

Interactions with Gamified Loyalty program/Features

In this section, we found that users prefer the loyalty program to be visible on the homepage, but still unobtrusive, such as through a small banner or icon. A user also stated that pop-ups should be avoided, as they risk interfering with daily activities on the app, such as QRIS payments or transfers.

“Kalo pop up itu soalnya takutnya dia kepencet. Misal kalo kita lagi darurat mau bayar pake qris terus pas buka tiba-tiba ada pop up banyak gitu ngalangin ganggu. Takutnya kepencet masuk ke game atau login sementara kita ditungguin orang di belakang yang mau bayar, tapi malah game yang kebuka.” -MK, F29

Several factors influence users’ motivation to use the program, including the value proposition, ease of use, and the amount of rewards. In terms of gamification mechanics, users showed a preference for daily log-ins and simple challenges.

“Game yang simple-simple jelas, kalo daily login paling enak sih soalnya ga buang waktu banyak. Yang jelas jangan game-game susah kaya puzzle gitu yang yahh buang waktu banyak lah” -T, M38

“Mending kalo challenge yang simpel kayak ‘pake QRIS 5 kali seminggu’ terus dapat bonus poin. Gampang diikutin soalnya kan emang sering dipake.” -MK, F29

User Persona

Like I said earlier, affinity mapping revealed common behaviors, pain points and motivations across users, which became the foundation for building a user persona. We then created this one persona that that captured who our users are and their goals, needs, etc. Meet Megan.

User Persona — Megan

Megan is a 27 year old working professional living in Jakarta. She relies heavily on mobile banking for everyday needs such as transfers and bill payments, so convenience are her top priority. She is open to loyalty programs, and she prefers ones that feel relevant to her lifestyle and offer tangible benefits like cash rewards or discounts.

However, Megan easily gets frustrated when apps feel cluttered or when the loyalty features are overly complex or the challenges are hard to accomplish. She also dislikes it when a program is difficult to access, hidden behind too many clicks. Irrelevant or unwanted rewards also discourages her from actively using the program, because she feels that the time needed to complete the tasks won’t be worth the reward. What motivates her is progress tracking and simple challenges that provide a sense of achievement without disrupting her primary goal: fast, seamless banking.

Megan represents a key segment of Gen Z and millennials who view digital banking as a necessity but still value engaging features when they are designed to be simple, purposeful, and rewarding.

Customer Journey Map

We then mapped out her journey to visualize how she interacts with a gamified loyalty program within a banking app, where she feels friction, and where the opportunities for improvement exist. All of this is based on insights from affinity mapping, and the user flow of NeoBank & Shopee’s app that we got from our interview (mostly NeoBank, since Shopee is an e-commerce app and some of its gamification features, such as spin-to-win or casino-style games, are not suitable for a banking application)

Customer Journey Map

The journey begins with logging in and opening homepage, where users often struggle to even notice the program because it’s hidden behind secondary menus. In this case, Megan feels slightly annoyed due to the program being hidden within the profile section.

During the engagement with the program stage, Megan find the simple gamification mechanic such as daily log-in to collect points quite pleasant (“Yay, one click for +5 points!”) But as she opens the challenges list hoping to collect more points, she finds it overwhelmingly hard to accomplish, leading to frustration instead of motivation (“Do 40x transactions a week for +100 points? What the heck?”)

At the tracking stage, she finds the progress tracking bar simple and easy to understand. Seeing the collected points made her excited to see what the program offers as rewards. She clicked at the ‘rewards’ icon. At the rewards-seeking stage, the rewards feels irrelevant to her needs and not worth the effort (“I need discounts for monthly grocery shopping or electricity bills far more than for a random flight ticket!”), increasing her annoyance. At the aftermath stage, she got another notification reminding her “not to forget to log in every day for the rewards!” which annoys her even further. She feels that her time was wasted and nothing of value was gained, which risks disengagement and drop-off.

So….what’s that all about? what’s next?

From the insights we have gotten, we formulate a few recommendations to implement a gamified loyalty program for SAKU.id Mobile Banking Version.

01. Users stated that the gamification elements they found interesting were the points system, leaderboard with clear rewards.

Recommendations:

• Implement a consistent and transparent points system (e.g., 1 transaction = 10 points, bill payment = 20 points)
• Make the rewards users earn through gamification relevant to their needs/preferences.
• Leaderboards based on categories (e.g., ‘You’re in the top 10% of diligent savers’) with rewards tailored to each category

02. There are several factors that cause gamification elements to be considered difficult/boring: time consuming, games/challenges are considered difficult to complete, accessibility is complicated, rewards are small.

Recommendations:

• Making the mechanics simpler and challenges easier
• Optimizing accessibility (reducing the number of clicks required to access the loyalty program)

03. Providing special badges/status as part of gamification for users can be done as an incentive as long as it does not change the comfortability of using the application and rewards + benefits (vouchers, promos, discounts, & additional balances) are provided

Recommendations:

• Implement a lightweight and non-obtrusive badge/special status design.
• Clarify how to earn badges/special status (e.g., 20 transfers required to upgrade to Platinum)
• Users receive rewards in the form of vouchers, promotions, and discounts that can be used for common activities such as paying electricity/mobile phone bills, topping up e-wallets, etc.

04. Several elements influence users’ comfort and motivation in using loyalty features: ease of use, value proposition, and number of rewards.

Recommendations:

• Simplify loyalty program’s access, directly from the homepage.
• Display clear benefits in simple language (20x transfers = 25% discount voucher)
• Implement a reward system that increases with each level (e.g., level 5 = 3x daily free transfers, level 15 = 5x daily free transfers, etc.)

05. Users prefer a concise loyalty/gamification visual display on the homepage that does not interfere with daily banking activities.

Recommendations:

• Showing progress/level tracker on the main dashboard to provide a quick preview for users to see at a glance.
• Make a separate page containing a list of games/challenges by clicking on the hero banner announcing games/challenges (e.g., mini-quests in the form of interactive quizzes to improve financial literacy, weekly savings challenges)

06. Users prefer a friendly and non-intrusive method to receive notifications about the latest updates regarding the loyalty program.

Recommendations:

• Use a drop-down notification with a simple and clean interface, including a prompt that doesn’t seem pushy to the user.
• Simple notifications with a soft, yet sufficiently alarming ringtone when opening the app.

07. The activities that users prefer in the loyalty feature are daily logins and simple challenges and games.

Recommendations:

• Implement daily logins as part of gamification, adding points equivalent to the reward to encourage users to continue logging in daily (e.g., daily login +10 points, 25% discount reward requires +300 points — 1 month daily login)
• Create simple challenges and games that are varied but not too difficult to achieve (e.g., 10 transactions per week, mini financial quiz to add +5 points)

Way Forward

We then used the Eisenhower Matrix to determine which recommendations should be implemented first.

Final — Eisenhower Matrix

And that concludes our research! Thank you for reading.