How IDFC FIRST Bank doubled their production speed with Zeplin
User Stories
Linda Le Phan
Apr 2023@lindalephan
How many users, on average, do you think the app your team is working on will benefit? Are you hoping thousands of happy users gain value out of it? Millions? How about a billion? That’s the size of the population IDFC FIRST Bank serves. 🤯 That means their product team builds for a larger and more diverse user base than most typically experience. Their main focus is to cater to their diverse and large user base to ensure every aspect of their banking experience is seamless.
This aligns with their vision, which V. Vaidyanathan, IDFC FIRST Bank’s Managing Director and CEO, says: is to build a world class bank in India, guided by ethics, powered by technology, and be a force for social good. (Learn more about the bank’s history and vision here)
The ability to satisfy a variety of customer needs within one digital experience was put to the test with their latest build: a multi-platform app that connects their online banking interface with FASTag — the national electronic toll collection system operated by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI).
By creating this unified interface, IDFC FIRST Bank’s customers can do even more within a single dashboard, including recharging their account for tolls and fuel stations, viewing statements, and performing trip analyses.
The fact that the Bank launched a banking application of this scale ahead of their projected deadline — while also experiencing a major boost in customer ratings, app performance, and cost savings in the process — is like the holy grail of achievements for a product team. They did it all with the help of Zeplin, which is why we recognized IDFC FIRST Bank with a 2023 Harmony Award! 🏆
Let’s dive into what IDFC FIRST Bank’s Technology Product Management team shared about their experience during and after the app’s launch, and how Zeplin contributed to their success.
Immediate positive customer and industry reception
No matter how much effort a team puts into a product, the ultimate measure of success comes from customers and peers. Customers will tell you whether they actually enjoy and find value in what you’ve built, and industry peers will measure how your technology performs against industry standards and best practices.
IDFC FIRST Bank saw positive validation from both directions. ✌️
29% increase in customer ratings
40% in increase in their app’s performance score
Our Rating on the Google Play Store has gone up from 2.7 Stars to 3.5 Stars in just 3 months post implementation. The APDEX Score (Checked on Dynatrace) of our website has gone up from 0.62 to 0.87 in the same period.
Technology Product Management Team,IDFC FIRST Bank
Shipping twice as fast and spending less on resources
Given the scale of what they were building, IDFC FIRST Bank’s product team should absolutely feel proud to have gained positive customer feedback and performance indicators so soon after release. As their team explains, “just to speak about volumes, over 400 Screens have been developed (design to code) by my team in the past 4 months” for the project.
But what’s even more exciting — for them and for us — is that IDFC FIRST Bank’s product team also exceeded their timeline expectations and therefore saved money during the build, thanks to having Zeplin in their product delivery tool stack.
With the help of Zeplin we were able to deliver this project — which had an estimated timeline of 6 months — in just 3 months. This helped us save close to $12000 in just outsourced resource cost per month.
Technology Product Management Team,IDFC FIRST Bank
How IDFC FIRST Bank used Zeplin in their workflow
It’s a given that bringing 400 screens from design to code in just 4 months means your team must move quickly. But ensuring high quality and solid performance in your final product — in the same turnaround time — requires extremely strong organization and collaboration between designers and developers throughout the development cycle.
IDFC FIRST Bank credits Zeplin for providing a workflow that allows their designers to stay in sync with developers to produce the best possible user experience, all while moving at lightning speed together.
The most impactful aspects of their Zeplin workflow include:
Having a smooth and intuitive interface for developers to get designs, instructions, and documentation
The ability to keep communication between designer and developer right next to the final designs and in a centralized place
Convenient code snippets tailored by platform, which allowed their developers to build faster and more accurately
The use of standard components, all stored in Zeplin, to ensure website and app quality
Our Developers have become twice as efficient by using the code snippets provided by Zeplin of various components. Our Designers interact with Developers through the comments section provided by tagging each other in the disputed part of a screen. Overall we were able to deliver a project of 6 months estimated timeline in just 3 months.
Technology Product Management Team,IDFC FIRST Bank
Using Zeplin boosted their team’s production speed and quality
These impressive outcomes for IDFC FIRST Bank’s multi-platform app is a very clear example of what a fast-moving and dedicated product team can achieve when they align around better organization, documentation, and collaboration in Zeplin. Congratulations to IDFC FIRST Bank for creating such an impactful digital experience!
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