Book 10,000 Fixed Deposits a day — without touching the backend

Overview

Doubling conversions without a single line of backend code

A bank came to us with a clear target: grow daily Fixed Deposit bookings from 5,000 to 10,000. The catch — the backend was completely off-limits. Every gain had to come from the experience layer alone.

Problem

We designed for the audience we assumed, not the one we had

With the backend untouchable, every decision had to happen in the UI. Stakeholder discussions pointed to one "logical" audience, and we built the entire flow around it — landing page, key screens, messaging. It didn't work.

Research

Going back to actual users instead of guessing again

Instead of iterating on a broken assumption, we stepped back and studied real behaviour and data from people actually using the banking app. The pattern that emerged had nothing to do with our original target age group.

Ideation

Two very different audiences, two different journeys

With the real audience identified, we mapped what 25–30 year olds actually needed from a Fixed Deposit journey — different motivations, different trust signals, different pacing — and explored landing page and flow directions built specifically around them, instead of retrofitting the original design.

Designs

A Fixed Deposit journey rebuilt around the real audience

We redesigned the landing page and every key screen in the booking flow around the 25–30 audience's behaviour and expectations, then tested the new experience with a small group of customers before rolling it out.

The final booking flow — tenure selector, maturity growth chart, and a single clear call to action.

Lessons

The real failure isn't a design that flops

This project reinforced a rule I now carry into every engagement: the biggest UX mistake isn't a version that fails testing — it's designing for the user you assume you know, instead of the one you actually go and research.