20 questions for fund brands to ask creative agencies

If you’re in the finance industry and interviewing design agencies, you’ve probably prepared yourself with some standard pitching questions to ask.

But your business is finance. You need a specialist design agency that understands your sector and has experience in the particular design requirements for financial products, platforms and services. Standard questions don’t go far enough.

So – as a specialist agency – we've compiled 20 detailed questions to help you deep dive and do a comprehensive agency evaluation.

Pick the ones that apply to you and adapt if needed.

Can you provide case studies where you:

1. Effectively communicated complex financial concepts or large amounts of data – e.g. using data visualisations, interactive elements and dashboards – in ways that help users understand it quickly and easily?
2. Designed user interfaces that follow the strict accessibility and compliance standards in the financial sector?
3. Presented real-time market data or investment performance metrics? How did you ensure accuracy and reliability in the information displayed?
4. Created interactive tools for retirement planning/fund management/pension fund management/lending/portfolio tracking/financial goal tracking?
5. Incorporated behavioural finance principles, to encourage users’?better financial decision-making?
6. Designed interfaces for trading complex financial instruments such as derivatives or options? How did you make it easy to use at the same time as handling intricate transaction processes?
7. Reacted to changes in SEC regulations that required new ways to communicate with investors?

Can you describe your process for:

1. Using visual design elements to give users a sense of security and trust, particularly for asset management and investment platforms?
2. Approaching the design of a frictionless, intuitive onboarding process for new users? What about AML requirements?
3. Designing a website or app interface that gives a concise yet comprehensive overview of a client's diverse investment portfolio?
4. Displaying legal and compliance information effectively, such as T&Cs or risk disclosures, without complicating the user experience?
5. Designing for multi-factor authentication and biometric security measures, keeping a balance between robust security and ease of use?
6. Creating digital solutions for tax-efficient investment management? What about tax reporting and optimisation within the product?
7. Presenting potentially negative outcomes (e.g. portfolio reporting, performance, forecasting) without causing unnecessary stress or alarm to users?

Further questions:

1. Does your experience include fintech product strategy as well as UX and design?
2. Do you just build products or can you create the branding for it too? What case studies do you have?
3. What experience do you have in my market? e.g. UK, US, Europe, APAC.
4. What experience do you have in the M&A process?
5. We can build it ourselves. How would you integrate your UI & UX team with our dev team?
6. I’m early stage and seeking funding. Can you still help me??I need support with my branding and proposition, to secure investment.

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