Canadia Bank is the largest bank in Cambodia, with over $6.5B in assets, $388M in Gross Revenue and 60 branches, 161 ATMs, and over 3,000 employees.
Mäd has a strong working relationship with Canadia Bank and their senior executive team, having helped on several key initiatives and having at least one project running with their team at any given time, which is unsurprising as our strategy is built on creating close and long-lasting client relationships that span years and add tangible value to their business.
This Canadia Bank website project had been attempted several times in the past with the usual problems that these types of redesigns encounter: long time frames, a lack of a design-centric approach, and a strong focus on IT or backend services instead of customer experience.
Mäd took the opposite approach and spoke to customers and bank employees to understand their pain points, their aspirations, and what would really delight them. This allowed us to create an incredible before & after difference:
Before we jump into how we made this happen, it's worth taking the time to review the old website, that had been in continuous use for over ten years.
This was what the current website looked like when we arrived at the scene:
The problem with the existing website is that it did not position the bank as the largest bank in the country and it was significantly below the expectations of the existing customers as well new potential customers of the bank.
This has a significant negative impact on the bank because it increases the amount of support required for customers who cannot self-serve themselves on information that they require, while the recruitment section does not inspire new applicants to apply for a particular position.
Additionally, the old website was not particularly mobile-friendly, which was a large issue considering that the majority of Cambodian consumers actually prefer to use mobile devices to browse the internet compared to desktops or laptops.
Our approach was one of speed. We knew that getting a new website out would create significant improvements across multiple departments, and this is why we created a small co-working group that included the CTO and one Senior VP, that meant that decisions could be made on the spot during each project meeting instead of the typical up-and-down decision-making style that many large corporations have.
This allowed Canadia Bank to act on this project as if they were a startup instead of one of the largest enterprises in the country. This meant that we were able to take the typical timelines of a project of this size, which is normally 6 to 12 months, and complete and have it live within 8 weeks – without sacrificing the quality of the work.
Our first step, like most projects, was to listen. We understood the key objectives, the current pain points, and the aspirations for the future. We reviewed in-depth reference websites like the HSBC Group website as well as all the local and regional competitor websites.
For this project, nothing short of having the best banking website in the country was acceptable.
At Mäd, we believe that you should never start with technology first and then decide what you can do with it, but rather start with key goals, requirements, and customer experience and then work backward to define which technology will help you achieve that.
For Canadia Bank, we decided to use Webflow for a few key reasons:
We worked to significantly simplify the navigation and information architecture, with a focus on ensuring that each of the different types of users could easily find the information they require with the minimum number of steps.
The key user personas we had to consider are:
Mäd took care of the core messaging for each page as well as the content writing, while the client focussed on providing key imagery of team members, management, customers, and branches.
The home page specifically benefitted from having a time-lapse commissioned that plays in the background of the main home page sections, giving the website a unique sense of dynamism and cosmopolitanism
As we had previously designed a new digital style guide for Canadia Bank for their new mobile banking application, we build on top of this work to develop the web style guide.
We created 3 key directions based on the digital style guidelines we had previously built. The core idea behind each of the design directions was to position Canadia Bank as a digital-first bank that's modern, approachable, and professional.
This was achieved by creating designs that have an ethos of "less is more". By reducing the density of information presented on each page, we ensure that there is clarity in the messaging and communication, and this allows users to more fully understand the various products and services offered by Canadia Bank.
We created three separate batches of pages and presented our progress weekly to a select group of executives, gathering feedback and sometimes even making changes or mocking up ideas on the spot.
We used our project management platform Bloo to manage feedback, provide real-time insights, and have one source of truth for all decisions and approvals.
Our approach with each page was to have a clear message to communicate and one single action that we want users to take. This enabled us to be bold with our design while ensuring that users can still easily navigate the website.
Another interesting challenge was that the website needed to support English, Khmer, and Traditional Chinese script. The available typography for these languages vary significantly in line height, and it required ensuring that the design accommodated for the differences between the languages.
Canadia Bank trusted Mäd to deliver the best banking website in the Kingdom of Wonder, and we delivered the project in less than two months, compared to the typical 6-12 month process that most financial institutions go through.
Canadia Bank is now benefiting from an improved customer experience, a better online image, and the best online experience of any commercial bank in Cambodia.
Additionally, Canadia Bank also contracted with Mäd to design their latest mobile application, and you can read about the case study here:
