Transforming digital vehicle finance
Helping move a traditional vehicle-finance business toward greater digital acquisition, servicing and self-service across multiple customer channels.
- Organisation
- Absa Vehicle & Asset Finance
- Industry
- Financial services / vehicle finance
- Scope
- Product strategy · Customer experience · Digital acquisition · Self-service · Service design
- Channels
- Web · Mobile banking · Online banking · Internal digital platforms
Digital onboarding flow — Absa vehicle finance application
01 — The context
A complex financial product, spread across multiple channels
AVAF customers met vehicle finance across public web, mobile banking, authenticated online banking and internal digital platforms.
The business needed to increase digital adoption, improve acquisition performance and move more customer activity into self-service.
The complexity was not in the interface. It sat across legacy systems, business rules, affordability requirements, channel ownership and the balance between customer experience and commercial constraints.
02 — My remit
I was working across a portfolio, not a single feature
I led initiatives across acquisition, servicing and self-service — delivery alongside influence on what the portfolio should pursue, and why.
Alongside these: mobile and online banking channels, beneficiary migration, business workshops, design and process-engineering alignment, and portfolio delivery and risk tracking.
03 — The decisions that mattered
The value was often in the decision before the design.
Do not copy a poor legacy journey into a new channel
A request was made for new digital journeys to replicate an existing process. I challenged that approach, because the existing experience already had customer and usability problems.
During that work an undetected issue in the Bolt vehicle application flow was surfaced: the vehicle-type field displayed the same list regardless of the option selected. The issue was corrected, reducing customer confusion and reputational risk — and reinforcing the need to challenge legacy journeys rather than reproduce them.
Push beyond incremental website fixes
The business initially requested a series of incremental improvements to the AVAF public website. Design challenged whether those changes would create the intended business impact and recommended stepping back to address the experience more strategically.
This helped shift the conversation from isolated interface changes toward the broader digital estate and customer journey.
Treat risk as part of the customer experience
Potential phishing and experience risks were identified in the FastBuy journey. Rather than treating the work as a page-design task, the concern was escalated to the relevant business owner and the work was paused until the underlying journey issues were addressed.
Move from channel optimisation toward service design
AVAF also initiated a channel-agnostic redesign of customer servicing and off-boarding. The goal was to improve the overall customer experience while reducing cost-to-serve, rather than optimising one channel in isolation.
04 — Selected interventions
Four examples of the work itself
Digital acquisition
Worked across public and authenticated acquisition journeys to improve how customers entered and progressed through vehicle-finance applications.
Website conversion
The primary Apply Now call-to-action was moved from the bottom to the top of the page.
Result: 35% increase in Apply Now clicks.
Loan adjustment
Helped enable customers to adjust their vehicle-loan position digitally using available advance amounts.
Digital settlement
Helped enable customers to settle their vehicle-finance account digitally through authenticated channels.
05 — Evidence of impact
What the portfolio moved.
AVAF reported a 43% increase in digital adoption during this period, with the released digital initiatives across the portfolio delivered under my execution.
Metrics are drawn from internal AVAF performance and portfolio reporting from the relevant periods.
06 — Beyond the features
The bigger shift was how the business thought about digital
The work increasingly moved beyond individual journey delivery. The stronger contribution was helping create a more strategic conversation.
- Digital adoption
- Customer self-service
- Channel strategy
- Service design
- Customer and business risk
- Process-engineering alignment
- Measurable outcomes
- Whether requested work would actually create business value
The hard part was rarely the screen. It was deciding what should change, why it mattered and how the organisation could move with it.
07 — Operating model
Operating across design, product and business
The portfolio was managed through more than design output. Monthly reporting and working rhythms covered:
08 — Carried forward
What this work reinforced for me
Good digital transformation is not feature delivery. It requires alignment between customer needs, systems, business rules and organisational priorities.
Design should challenge the brief when the brief is the problem.
Business impact becomes easier to defend when customer experience is connected to measurable outcomes.