Designing for financial collaboration
PROBLEM
In India, families coordinate finances across multiple accounts and generations, yet financial apps take an individualistic approach.
Joint accounts are often cited as the standard solution for shared finances, but existing studies show they are rarely used for collaboration. They cannot accommodate the fluid way families negotiate spending, share access, and pool resources informally.
OPPORTUNITY
HMW design financial systems to support collaboration in a way that reflects lived practices?
GOALS
- Document collaborative financial practices across diverse Indian household structures
- Identify gaps between user needs and current digital financial system capabilities
- Formulate design principles to enable support and collaboration in financial digital applications
RESEARCH
Phase 1: Diary Studies
I recruited 11 female participants across diverse household structures: 2 from three-generation households, 6 young adults (mid-20s) living with parents, 3 living with partners. I recruited them through personal networks and social media, screened via Qualtrics.
Participants captured moments of financial collaboration over one week—planning expenses, paying bills, negotiating budgets, or thinking “I should tell my partner about this purchase.” In each diary entry, I asked them to capture:
- the financial situation that occured
- the person they collaborated with
- tools used, if any
I offerd them three formats (Excel, WhatsApp, or forms), and participants chose the one with the least friction for making entries.
Excel format: Structured logging with predefined categories
WhatsApp format: Quick voice notes and text messages
Form format: Guided prompts for consistent entries
I collected 101 entries spanning quick grocery decisions to long-term investment planning. Daily check-ins sustained engagement. After each week, I conducted follow-up interviews to understand te specifics and context surroundign the diary entries.
Thematic analysis revealed five themes around collaborative practices.
Affinity mapping codes from thematic analysis
Diary studies captured what households do; workshops explored how systems should support those practices.
Phase 2: Co-Design Workshops
I ran three remote workshops (3 participants each) exploring “How might we build financial awareness so everyone feels involved and informed?”
In the first activity, groups discussed four real scenarios from the diary studies. What should the “budget system” say, think, do, and feel? Scenarios addressed visibility gaps, accountability needs, and technical comfort levels.
Figjam board explaining Activity 1
Participants discussing and writing notes for accountability and budgeting scenarios
In the second activity, participants individually visualized their ideal system using images and notes on FigJam boards.
Figjam board explaining Activity 2
Participants indivdually visualized a collaborative system
Workshop transcripts were coded inductively using Braun & Clarke’s thematic analysis in NVivo. Resulting codes were mapped across: (1) financial management stages (plan, act, track, analyze, adjust) and (2) level of technological intervention needed (human-led vs automated vs intelligent).
Mapping solutions from workshops
FINDINGS
Research revealed that participants don’t perceive individualized banking as frustrating because they’ve built collaborative workarounds around rigid systems. The real issue is systemic invisibility of household practices in financial design. These mismatches expose where digital systems fail to acknowledge how money actually works in Indian families.
When Indian families coordinate payments and manage bills, they treat money collectively, sharing passwords and cards.
"We maintain everyone's passwords in a book. We don't have a shared account literally, but do we share accounts? Yes." — P4
This familial sense of "Our Money" is supported by two types of behaviors: when one member acts for the financial benefit of everyone, and when all members jointly act for everyone's benefit.
Parents invest money for their children. Couples invest individually for their joint retirement. Young adults override their parents to pay for expenses, as P8 explained: "When you are capable of paying for it, you take care of them."
Families share credit cards to leverage better offers, with P11 and her partner coordinating: "Can I use your card for this discount?" They settle up later or take turns paying.
Banks treat password-sharing as policy violations, yet families need this access to manage money collectively. Systems assume individual ownership and refuse to accommodate one person acting for the household, proportional contributions, or taking turns to pay. This forces risky informal workarounds.
This separation creates a second problem during day-to-day spending.
"It's very scattered. All of us pay out of our own pockets. The bills are not pooled in. We're not able to track where we spent." — P1
Multiple people using multiple individual accounts, cards, and apps create an incomplete household picture. Participants forgot to track expenses, lost track across platforms, and found themselves asking "where did the money go?" Using different tools means systems don't sync.
When families attempt to track these scattered expenses, they face a digital divide.
"My mother is still scared to use net banking." — P4
"Each app is different and I don't want to spend time understanding." — P6
Older members are intimidated by complicated systems. Households cope by dividing responsibilities based on comfort: tech-savvy members handle auto-payments and subscriptions, while less comfortable members manage manual payments.
But this workaround has consequences. Financial apps assume uniform digital literacy, which excludes older adults. This exclusion forces paper-digital hybrid systems that never sync, preventing older members from actively participating in household financial management.
For those who can use digital tools, another barrier emerges when analyzing spending patterns.
"We use rough limits, general awareness. It's easier than constantly logging into apps so we quickly dropped." — P9
Everyone wanted spending analysis. No one wanted constant manual logging. Households use "good enough" methods with rough limits and general awareness.
"Apps don't have my exact categories. Not everything is 'shopping' or 'groceries.'" — P3
They need lightweight accountability. P11 tracks who paid for expenses with her partner, but they don't settle up for small purchases. Transaction data already exists in bank statements, but categorization is inaccurate. P2, P3, and P9 all complained about this.
"I'm worried about privacy, how much access am I giving a third-party app?" — P11
Third-party apps demand full account access, which participants refuse for security. Systems offer manual logging of everything or nothing. What's missing is lightweight social tracking.
DESIGN RECOMMENDATIONS
Need: Families need legitimate ways to share account access based on household roles, not rigid ownership models.
Design Patterns: Enable role-based account sharing where account holders can add family members with granular permissions. This could be viewing balances, making payments or receiving notifications without requiring full joint ownership. This legitimizes collaborative access, eliminating risky password-sharing workarounds while also preserving individual account ownership.
Example: P4's mother adds family members as 'bill payers' to her account. P11 receives 'authorized user' status on her partner's credit card with spending limits, no password needed.
Need: Scattered individual accounts need aggregation into collective views while respecting personal boundaries.
Design Patterns: Allow users to link their individual accounts into a shared household dashboard showing aggregated categorical spending. Each person controls what's visible (shared bills vs. personal purchases). Enable notifications when shared expenses are paid.
Example: Family sees 'Total groceries this month: ₹15,000' across all accounts. P10's mother's diary entries sync with family's digital payments into one view.
Need: Financial tools must accommodate varying comfort levels to prevent exclusion from digital household finance.
Design Patterns: Design tiered interfaces, such as simplified views for basic tasks (check balance, pay bill) and advanced views for detailed management. Integrate with accessible channels families already use (WhatsApp, SMS). Support multiple input methods (voice, photo of receipt).
Example: P4's mother receives WhatsApp message 'Electricity due: ₹2,500. Reply YES to pay' while daughter uses full banking app.
Need: Use existing transaction data to provide insights without demanding manual effort or compromising privacy.
Design Patterns: Auto-categorize transactions with user-editable custom categories. Enable social tagging (who paid) without logging transaction amounts. No third-party access required, just use existing bank data.
Example: System auto-tags UPI grocery payment, P11 adds 'Paid by partner's card' tag. Family receives weekly summary: 'Groceries ₹4,000, Utilities ₹3,000.'
REFLECTION
This study’s findings are limited to familial households in India. All participants cohabited with family members, meaning observed practices may not generalize to non-relatives like flatmates or friends. They also came from different household structures. For a more tightly scoped study, it would be better if all participants recruited were from the same type of household structure, such as couples or friends living together.
Participants’ roles in financial management also varied. Some were primary managers, and others were occasional contributors. This variation may have influenced insights, potentially underrepresenting certain household arrangements. Additionally, participants focused on portraying their collaborative successes rather than tensions or disagreements, meaning conflict dynamics are underrepresented. Looking back, further screening for participant’s level of financial involvement would make the study more rigorous.
FUTURE WORK
Design principles were derived from research findings and need validation through prototyping and testing. Future work should evaluate these recommendations with working prototypes.
AI-enabled financial collaboration holds promise but requires careful exploration of consent, trust, and household autonomy. How might AI act as a “fifth household member”, a co-planner, that assists without controlling? What safeguards prevent harmful advice for vulnerable users?