CardoAI budgeting neo-bank concept for the Entrepreneurship Module at Imperial (finished)

Format: App
Location: London
XCode, Figma, After Effects
Year: 2024

Cardo acts as a neo-bank offering a seamless financial management platform with integrated electrochromic smart cards and ML-driven budgeting insights. Our solution uses real-time spending categorisation, personalised feedback on inefficient spend patterns, and visual cues to empower users to control their finances effectively. To make this lucrative for businesses as well, spending data is essential to understanding general consumer demand, thereby highlighting how Cardo also bridges a mutually beneficial relationship between the user and business.

Interview Research
Format: FigmaJam
Location: London
Months: September - December
Year: 2024

The section aboves includes images from research conducted with people on issues related to budgeting. These include stresses, food related expenditures, suggestions, some existing budgeting practises and finally some other suggestions/problems. They were collated over a 3-4 month period, speaking to ages from 16-38, and over 25 different people. Findings were put into post notes on FigmaJam.

Survey Summaries

Gained some key insights from users across ages 20-28 demographic that gave us information on features that Cardo could potentially have. This was a focused beta test after developing some initial designs for the app.

Initial Designs

Initial designs conceuptialised the background to be a full gradient inspired by real-time payments made by the user. It would show 3 pages, but from the feedback received, we realised that the app would benefit from a more pastel look, something easier on the eye.

Final Page Designs

Budget Page
Shows balance and time period of current budget. Gives other insights from day too. Some key visual features:

1. Gradient Display
Visualises the budget left along the bars highlighted. In this case, the user is halfway through their weekly budget

2. Recent Purchases
Shows the most recent purchases made through Cardo. Visualises what company too.

3. Spending Categories
Breaks down weekly payments in separate categories. Can be expanded to give detailed breakdowns of each section.

Net Savings Page
Shows net savings for the week and percentage of ‘wasteful spending’ by determining inefficiencies in patterns.

1. 10-week aggregate
Visualises how much users are wasting by spending impulsively or inefficiently for each weekday, over the last 10 weeks.

2. Affiliate Ads
Based on smart insights generated from a user’s spending patterns, ads are personalised to help the user save money.

3. Card visualisation
Shows bar of how much has been spent in accordance to the budget for that day.

Inefficiencies Page

1. Day-by-day breakdown
Bar section shown in black represents potentially wasted money through spending that could be avoided.

2. Breakdown of wasted spending
Shows the accumulative cost of the ‘last 10 Mondays’ due to impulse spending such as coffee, food deliveries, etc.

3. Affiliates to cut costs
Shows deals/discounts in the user’s area that could benefit them in saving money. These are shown in a section underneath spending.

Budget Diary

1. Stack of cards for day-by-day
Visualises the spending of the last 10 days in separate cards. As the user scrolls through, they see a summary of past spending.

2. Top Purchases
Top purchases from that day are shown below to give an indication of where most of their money is going.

3. +Spending/ -Spending
Indicates whether the user has saved money or spent over the budget on that particular day.

App Flow
Format: App
Location: London
XCode, Figma, After Effects
Year: 2024

This video above shows the app page flow between the 4 pages that were designed. The customer flows from their initial budget page, to their net savings, to inefficiencies. They can then see a budget diary of all their recent purchases, inspired by the design of the Apple Wallet. The gradient of the spending remains the same across all 4 pages since it’s a constant representation of the spending that the customer has made throughout the day.