Shon J.

Projects Led at scale

Shriram One

A lending, insurance and investments SuperApp for Shriram Finance customers.

Role
One of two design owners, design lead from inception
Years
2022 to 2026
Status
Live
Platform
Mobile app

Mobile app · 2022 to 2026

We turned seventy pages of loan paper into one of 47 app journeys.

  • 20M+Downloadspublicly reported
  • 14MActive users
  • 20 minLoan approval, at its fastestfrom 24 to 48 hours; varies by loan
  • 40:60Customer mix, existing to newfrom 80:20

From application to approval

Here is the lending journey, from start to approval, with no paper at all.

  1. Before: About 70 pages of paper

    24 to 48 hours to approve

  2. Apply in the app

    One lending product at a time

  3. eKYC

    Identity checked online

  4. Approved

The problem

Lending, insurance and investments were the core of the business, yet they had no real digital front door. Competitors were busy fighting over payments instead.

  1. Before: A loan meant about 70 pages of paper

    After: An online identity check (eKYC) replaced the paper file

  2. Before: Loan approval took 24 to 48 hours

    After: Approval in as little as 20 minutes, depending on the loan

  3. Before: Customers were 80% existing, 20% new

    After: Digital acquisition shifted the mix to 40% existing, 60% new

Decisions

  1. Decision 1

    Build around lending, not payments

    We centred the app on loans, investments and insurance, the real core of the business.

    Considered Copying payment-first competitors

  2. Decision 2

    Rebuild journeys, don't port them

    We rebuilt the merged lenders' journeys, taking about 47 products across lending, investments and insurance one at a time.

    Considered One shared flow with variations per product

  3. Decision 3

    Weigh every request against the app

    We weighed each feature against the app's needs first, so requirements arrived ready to design.

Outcome

63% of new users came from small-town India. Engineering, product, data and QA teams built it to one design direction.

Team
A team of 300-plus; I led the 14-member design team

Sources

How it was made

Engineering, product, data and QA built the app. My part was the design: fully worked UI and UX in Figma, backed by the design team's own research, and the 14-member team I led.

  1. 1

    One design system

    A shared design system kept every screen consistent while many teams built in parallel.

  2. 2

    Research first

    We ran our own design research, and every design decision started there.

  3. 3

    Led the team

    I led and mentored a 14-member design team while the transformation group grew from about 35 to past 300.

  4. 4

    Owned the flows

    Product managers came to me for feature logic and flows, not just screens.

  5. 5

    Product by product

    We redesigned about 47 products across lending, investments and insurance one at a time in Figma, each as fully worked UI and UX.

Made with: Designed in Figma, Miro and Jira; built by the Shriram Finance engineering teams.

Get in touch