COLLABORATIVE FUTURES
Glasgow School of Art X Royal Bank of Scotland | 2018 - 2019
ABOUT
‘Collaborative Futures: Feeling Financial Health in 2028’ is a project exploring the role of the Royal Bank of Scotland in the future and how they can work towards experiential financial services that focus on the health and wellbeing of their customers.
This year’s brief placed a focus on the recent changes in the domains of both finance and health, and how these changes are transforming our relationships with money and financial services. Within this, we tested out the Royal Bank of Scotland’s Design team’s ways of working in combination with our own methods, with a focus on user-centred design techniques and a socially-driven approach. By bringing together a diverse range of perspectives, we were able to explore opportunities for future financial services that support the wellbeing of their customers.
​
There were three sub-groups within the team that undertook research to build a data bank of insights specific to lenses defined by RBS. Whilst these lenses played a key role in the beginning of the project to ground our research and exploration, we found that the themes emerging were interconnected across the lenses. We therefore formed our user engagement and possible futures as a whole, across all of the lenses, to create richer visions for 2028.
Cultivating
Digital Literacy
Sensing
Financial Wellbeing
Sustaining
Financial Healthcare
The digital revolution in banking might put some people at a disadvantage - how can the bank tailor its services to individuals and ensure everyone is supported within a highly digital landscape? This brief is inspired by the idea of precision medicine in health, where a greater understanding of patients genetic makeup can lead to a tailored treatment which better meets their needs. Can the bank use these same data-driven services to reach customers at a disadvantage in this new digital landscape?
This lens explores the relationship between financial activity and physical/mental health and wellbeing. Within this lens, we have explored how the bank can detect and intervene to guarantee a customer’s wellbeing, moving more towards a preventative model of financial care rather than reactive. Part of this is exploring how personal data is shared and the rise of new ways people can monitor and track key aspects of their lives, allowing us to take more control and have greater self-awareness over our health and finances.
This lens is focused upon lifelong financial health - how might the bank maximise, maintain and support the financial health of current and future generations? With challenges such as the ageing population, the bank will have to adjust to a new societal landscape and tailor its services to diagnose, treat and sustain financial health throughout life. This means moving beyond the notion of care as episodic - lifelong financial care is needed.