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Online banking today makes services invisible and renders money intangible.

Customers are less loyal and the bank loses recognition.

Design Solution Immeditate, tactile reading of high/low account balance directly on your credit card in the moment of purchase.

Touch Card

How Might We Make Banking Services More Tangible?

the card that moves with your finances

Immediate understanding in the intuitive gesture of taking out your credit card Displays real-time, tactile feedback indicating high/low account balance, each time you swipe your card.

Restores the physicality of money in your account growing and depleting.

Reunites the feeling of physical money with your plastic payment card.

Invokes curiousity about exact balance, nudging you to launch the bank’s app to check your account.

A small haptic actuator is placed on your credit card that communicates with your bank and reacts according to your purchases.

Why The World Needs This Solution The wealth of many Western economies today depends upon trading invisible and intangible goods and services. This exposes industries to enormous risk in switching costs, differentiation, and exceeding customer expectations with little personal interaction.

Middlefart Sparkasse is no different.

Exposed to the frenetic pace of technological change, the bank must innovate to meet the growing expectations of the digital generation.

Online banking provides instant account access, but separates physical money from the act of spending it. By helping their customers to acknowledge their spending physically, Middlefart Sparkasse achieves its objective of increased mindshare and loyalty.

Observed Behavior Interaction with the bank takes place at home in front of a screen or on a mobile device with the bank’s app.

The interaction is completely private.

Many card holders spend money in various contexts without awareness of how much money remains in their account.

Barriers: > Information is delivered in a purely visual format > Privacy and security are big concerns > Discomfort around money drives avoidance

Target Behavior Touch the smart patch on your card in the moment of purchase.

Interpret the feedback to understand how much money you have remaining in your account, according to the budgets you’ve set.

Log in to check your account balance more frequently.

Measuring the Impact Number of times consumer touches the smart patch on card before purchase.

Number of times consumer touches the smart patch on card after purchase.

Number of times consumer checks account balance, either on mobile or online. > Targeting a 7% increase in account login frequency during historically low activity periods, i.e., on weekend evenings.