ROLE
Product Design & Management
CLIENT/ORG
CredHive
TIMELINE
5 Months,
2024-Present
TEAM
CTO(Maghav, Founder),
Engineers(Mohit, Shubham, Sreehari, Sushil), Freelance Designer(Tushar)
SKILLS
Prototyping
Product Management
Research
Journey Mapping
Usability Testing
TOOLS
Figma
Notion
Framer
Context
In the financial sector, credit due diligence is often hampered by fragmented tools and manual workflows, leading to inefficiencies and increased risk. CredHive aimed to streamline this process by developing an integrated platform that automates and centralizes credit assessments.
Challenge
How might we centralize and automate credit assessments to minimize risks, reduce manual processes, and empower financial decision-making?
Understanding the Landscape
To ensure the solution aligned with real-world needs, we embarked on an extensive research phase involving:
Stakeholder Interviews
1 / Bankers and Credit Analysts
Struggled with siloed data sources and inefficient workflows for risk assessment.
2 / Regulators and CA's
Emphasized the need for audit-ready data and real-time compliance tracking.
3 / INVESTORS
Demanded actionable insights with intuitive visualizations.
Key Insight
Accuracy and trust were paramount, but users also wanted familiar workflows tailored to their specific needs.
Contextual Inquiries
By observing users in action, I discovered
Analysts relied heavily on manual summaries to synthesize insights from multiple sources.
“Red flag” identification processes were inconsistent and time-consuming.
Opportunities
A centralized platform that integrates and streamlines these processes could drastically improve speed and accuracy.
Competitive Analysis
To identify gaps and opportunities, I conducted an in-depth analysis of leading credit platforms. This analysis provided a benchmark for CredHive and guided its feature prioritization.
Dun & Bradstreet (D&B)
Differentiators
Global Reach: Extensive database with strong international coverage.
Credit Risk Modeling: Provides detailed credit scores and risk insights.
Global Reach: Peer support community for engagement.
Weakness
High Cost: Expensive subscription models, making it less accessible for smaller firms.
Outdated Interfaces: Complex navigation with a steep learning curve for new users.
CRISIL Ratings
Differentiators
Industry-Specific Expertise: Offers robust data for large enterprises in industries like banking and manufacturing.
Custom Reports: Provides tailored solutions for enterprise-level clients.
Weakness
Narrow Focus: Lacks real-time data updates and trade-specific insights.
SME Neglect: Not well-suited for small and medium-sized enterprises.
TransUnion
Differentiators
Accurate Credit Scoring: Known for precise credit scores and reliable financial metrics.
Simplified Dashboards: User-friendly dashboards for quick analysis.
Weakness
Limited Trade-Specific Insights: Does not provide granular details for trade data or compliance checks.
High Dependency on Reports: Users often need to purchase multiple reports to get a complete picture.
Experian India
Differentiators
Strong Financial Data: Provides detailed credit reports and financial insights.
Risk Management Tools: Includes tools for monitoring bulk data and identifying risks.
Weakness
Limited Automation: Requires manual checks for deeper insights, increasing user workload.
Fragmented Data: Does not offer comprehensive datasets covering all entity types (e.g., partnerships).
Expensive for SMEs: Pricing is geared toward large organizations, creating a barrier for smaller players.
Opportunities for CredHive..
1 / Dun & Bradstreet (D&B)
Simple & Intuitive UX, would win us the ring, along with a focus on multiple/all company types.
2 / CRISIL Ratings
By including real-time data and focusing on SMEs, CredHive could serve an underserved market while maintaining trustworthiness.
3 / TransUnion
We could integrate compliance tracking and trade data insights, providing a more holistic solution for due diligence.
4 / Experian India
By introducing automated alerts and tools for bulk monitoring at an affordable price, CredHive could stand out as a cost-effective alternative.
With these actionable insights, I conducted user research to validate the identified gaps and further align our solution with user needs.
Defining the Problem & Opportunity
Credit due diligence today is a fragmented process, relying heavily on disparate tools, inconsistent data, and manual checks. This inefficiency not only delays decisions but also increases the likelihood of missed risks, especially for SMEs, whose creditworthiness is often overlooked due to limited reporting standards. The result is slowed lending processes and diminished trust in financial evaluations.
Opportunity Statement
These were the core problem space we decided to operate in
Aggregating financial and compliance data into a single, intuitive platform.
Automating manual checks to save time and reduce human errors.
Providing SME-focused insights to bridge reporting gaps and promote inclusive lending.
Empowering faster, more informed decision-making for banks, analysts, and regulators.
Opportunity Statement
These were the core problem space we decided to operate in
Aggregating financial and compliance data into a single, intuitive platform.
Automating manual checks to save time and reduce human errors.
Providing SME-focused insights to bridge reporting gaps and promote inclusive lending.
Empowering faster, more informed decision-making for banks, analysts, and regulators.
02
SYNTHESIS
Personas
This is the synthesis of all the insights I got about users from both primary & secondary research, including qualitative & quantitative insights.
03
IDEATION
Ideation & Information Architecture
Purposeful Collaboration
I worked closely with the founder to shape CredHive, focusing on building a scalable platform as MVP for streamlined credit reporting.
We prioritized intuitive design, key company types, and essential data pillars for diverse stakeholders, based on my research and his domain expertise.
Entity Prioritization
We narrowed our scope to include entities with well-documented and standardized reporting metrics
1 / Included
Public, Private, and LLP entities, as they provide consistent and comprehensive financial and compliance data.
2 / Excluded
Partnerships and Proprietorships, as their metrics lacked uniformity, which could compromise the reliability of our analytics.
/ Phase-2
Partnerships and Proprietorships (being the core part of our mission to ease lending for SME's) were pushed in the 2nd phase, post beta testing, along with Trade metrics & Sanctions, inclusion
Why
This focus allowed us to ensure data integrity and create features that cater to high-impact use cases, giving fruitful outcome of our ideation.
Defining the Core Pillars
To bring structure and clarity to the platform, we identified seven key pillars that would form the backbone of CredHive
1 / Company Overview
A snapshot of entity details, including registration, industry classification, and ownership.
2 / Financials
Comprehensive financial data for quick assessment of health and stability.
3 / Management Tree
Visual hierarchy of leadership for better transparency in decision-making.
4 / Shareholding Pattern
Insights into ownership structure to evaluate stakeholder dynamics.
5 / Financial Analysis
Key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics for in-depth evaluations.
6 / Documents
A repository of essential files, including financial statements, compliance reports, and filings.
7 / Legal
A section for compliance and legal records to identify risks and ensure regulatory adherence.
Structured Ideation
1 / Problem-Solution Mapping
For each pillar, we mapped user needs to platform features, ensuring alignment with stakeholder goals.
2 / Workflow Optimization
Simplified navigation between pillars to minimize cognitive load and maximize user efficiency.
3 / Scalability Focus
Designed a modular architecture, allowing future integrations like advanced analytics or SME-specific tools.
Contextual Inquiries
By observing users in action, I discovered
Analysts relied heavily on manual summaries to synthesize insights from multiple sources.
“Red flag” identification processes were inconsistent and time-consuming.
Opportunities
A centralized platform that integrates and streamlines these processes could drastically improve speed and accuracy.
Mind-Map(Information Architecture)
Mapping different approaches for Product discovery, while covering all aspects of core Product Idea.
User Flow + Information Architecture
04
DESIGN
Hi-Fi Prototypes
Went straight into Hi-Fi Prototypes, while maintaining a component system, along with another Product Designer
Final Designs (Iterative)
Will show the iterative journey of 1-2 screens, due to proprietary reasons(Data Sensitivity).
Home (shortlist, request, search & view companies)
Collection of all company reports & data.
Company page (all pillars-Overview, Financials, Management, etc)
Inside a Company's view - very basic version / ideation
2nd Iteration-Much cleaner, informative & better UX overall
Inside a Company's view - Overview
Some more glimpses...From Current Beta Version
Inside a Company's view - Overview(latest). We can also see the tab(data) expansion to include holistic compliances(legal, tax, trade{basic}) data, Charges(a kind of mortgage) history & Credit Ratings data (by regulatory bodies like CRISIL, ICRA & Fitch).
Company page (all pillars-Overview, Financials, Management, etc)
Inside a Company's view - Highlights(latest). Basic computation applied across different datasets, to come up ith high-level metrics to drive quick decision/skim.
Essentially a skimming tool, to get the gist of a company.
05
IMPACT
Impact-outcome of this project
Ongoing…
In just a week or two, we will Launch. We have successfully completed our beta and will open for some of the biggest banks in India. Because of that, I showed less of what I built there till now.
But, the work I did at Credhive is close to my heart as well, that’s why it’s inclusion is necessary as my final project, here.