NatWest wanted to build a disruptive, market-leading product that would help banking customers read their T&Cs and ensure they understood what they’re signing up for.

90% of people don’t read their T&Cs when opening a new account, which can lead to devastating and costly consequences down the line, for both the customer and the bank. NatWest wanted to reduce these consequences by increasing customer engagement and understanding of their T&Cs every time they opened a new account or product. They believed this would build customer advocacy and trust, and would lead customers to feel empowered and in control, as they’d understand what they’d signed up to.

Leveraging EdTech techniques to improve comprehension, we designed a product that made T&Cs more understandable for users. It used simple English, reduced jargon as much as possible and, where impossible, included definitions to help increase comprehension.

We defined a process flow using artificial intelligence (AI) to scale up the migration of traditional contracts into this new format, allowing banks to automate most of the process.

Built on the blockchain meant we reduced any risks introduced when digitising the legal contracts, making fraudulent activity nearly impossible.

We worked through a series of research and design sprints to test different ideas and flesh out our final product. We interviewed teachers to understand comprehension techniques in teaching, looking for inspiration from EdTech to help spark our thinking. We also explored various different approaches to T&Cs from the traditional banks to the disruptors like Monzo.

We spent weeks breaking down different legal contracts from the bank, working with a legal copy writer to make them more understandable. In our final round of user testing we tested both for comprehension of the contract and ease and speed of using the product to read a full T&Cs contract.

The hardest thing about this project was understanding the contracts. At one point we had a 29 page contract at 8pt text printed out and wrapped around our war room with our scribbles and highlighter markings deciphering the legal jargon. But it was crucial we understood the ins and outs so we could design and test a product that helped customers understand it.

Working with a legal copywriter was key. She was able to help us simplify the contract where possible, aiming for basic language fluency.

The other challenge was the enormous pressure we felt as a team to deliver on the client’s request of a “disruptive, market-leading product”. In many ways that’s like being asked to make something “go viral”. But in the end I’m really proud of the product we designed. The pressure pushed us further than we might have gone, and it was incredibly satisfying drawing from different industries like Education to create something new.