Context

The client, a major issuer for Amex, Visa and Mastercard credit card products in Switzerland, was lacking a credible mobile application for their customers. The client therefore was willing to invest in a new mobile platform.

Problem

A previous in-house attempt at a mobile app resulted in a poor user experience with limited functionality. The client then engaged with a major Swiss mobile applications development software house to provide the mobile app end user experience desired, but the project plan lacked a proper integration roadmap and the appropriate solution architecture needed for the data interactions with the mobile front-end.

Solution

We provided a number of roadmaps and subsequent solution architecture proposals to allow the mobile platform investment to be fully exploited.

Our deliverables were:

  • Defining the architecture behind a variety of mobile app notification events triggered by individual credit card purchase activities
  • Applying a consistent customer view of card and customer events to allow efficient implementation and troubleshooting across two (or more) partner mobile platforms
  • Introducing an enterprise-wide canonical event type catalogue, initially “purchase authorisation”, “loyalty offer” and “balance alert” event types
  • Designing notification internal event streams that
    • were consumed by internal systems and external partners alike and in a consistent (ordered) manner
    • were decoupled in operation to prevent impediment of other stream’s liveliness or throughput
    • were sufficiently coherent to allow cross-stream functionality (data analysis, filtering, wiretapping, windowing)
  • Ensuring that all solution aspects are designed comply with the relevant security standards (OWASP, PCI-DSS)

Measurable Impact

Our efforts were a significant contribution to the client's stated goals of

  • reducing the call–center voice workload by 25% by the end of the fiscal year
  • double within 6 months the current 70,000-strong mobile app user base
  • Attract new customers and increase card products upselling
  • Empower the customer to self-serve at the customer’s convenience and engage the customer through personalised, direct in-app notifications
  • Show the same information to the customer as seen by the call center (e.g. available spend, recent card activity)