secure client login areas for financial services

Get me in: secure client login areas for financial services

When is a website not just a website? My answer: when it helps you out. I don’t just mean that the site sells something or lets you source information like a train time (though those are both really helpful), but when you can actually retrieve something almost physical that you need. I mention this because we’ve been thinking recently about the ways in which websites can actually move beyond being just a ‘business portfolio’ and evolve into an interactive, genuinely useful, perhaps even personalised resource. No doubt there will be many industries for which this idea of a site being genuinely personalised in the future, but in the first instance we’ve been working on a fresh take on secure client login areas for financial services businesses.

 

What good can a website do?

If a website stores personal information, it can work harder than you think. Starting simple: if you’ve bought something online, the web shop should be able to offer an invoice or VAT receipt for your accounts. The days of finding bits of paper from last October to give to an impatient accountant should be long gone. If a site can do that, it should also be able to offer an easy-to-find, neat list of downloads available by date and – if you’re really lucky – a statement of your account for the year. Perhaps that might even include details of how much you spent and on what.

As the possibilities begin to open up, so do useful applications to your customer. Beginning to question what is possible with a site begets interesting answers.

One of the core philosophies that we have is that our work is custom-designed every time. In a basic sense that means we prepare every page layout from scratch, but I’ve always felt the genesis of this process means asking questions that might not always have immediately obvious resolutions. While we aren’t shy of asking questions, it’s also interesting when new ideas or possibilities are generated in response to unusual client briefs. They want to achieve things but aren’t sure how to get there. Our job (and this goes to the heart of why we love a bespoke approach) is to find out if something is possible, if that thing is practical or ultimately questioning if it’s a good idea.

To the topic in hand, when specifying secure client login areas for financial services businesses there’s an interesting duality to each project – an experimental and a constant. Every client has their own particular list of core features they need, yet they also require the backbone of a sound, consistent security protocol. Our job is to find answers that meld these two.

 

 

Our ambitious project for Oxford Investment Consultants

What kind of site ‘goes further’ – and what does that mean? A range of features could be covered, including;

  • the ability to see a breakdown of current investments;
  • a fund-by-fund list showing what is invested in which – to the end of the last financial year;
  • a clear list of linked downloads useful for personal accounting;
  • allowing the upload of new data direct to the website, giving fresh information to account holders

We’ve recently finished work on such a project for our long-time client Oxford Investment Consultants that does all these things.

Going back to my earlier point about the ‘constants’ every client requires, our starting point as we create secure client login areas for financial services businesses is to implement security protocols. As we did that, the brief from OIC on the custom design elements of the project was clear: they wanted a highly visual presentation of data in the most straightforward layout possible. Their brief was for us to design an immediately straightforward data dashboard where anyone could immediately understand what they were looking at. The page layouts thereafter followed this same logic of clarity, simplicity and usefulness. I’ve included a few of these below – including the way the site presents on a smartphone which we’re particularly proud of.

Interestingly this website project has been an incremental one, growing in a series of bursts with new design and programming briefs coming along every six months. As we began working with Oxford Investment Consultants, over two years ago, this had always been our agreed intention. I’m so pleased that their ambition and our enthusiasm to match it has resulted in a great partnership.

What our client said

‘Oxford Investment Consultants have thoroughly enjoyed the ongoing relationship they have built with Richard and his team.

‘With requirements covering branding, print and digital marketing materials, and a website with complex functionality and regulatory requirements, the skill of Richard’s team to offer clarity in interpreting our challenging and continually evolving requirements into seamless, user-friendly and attractive media is exemplary.

‘Further, the sensational service and emphasis on relationship building is a real credit to the culture Richard has developed in the firm.’

Freddie Hamilton
Oxford Investment Consultants

 

Layout of our secure client login area for Oxford Investment Consultants

With any sensitive data redacted, this is the design layout of the client login area for Oxford Investment Consultants giving a sense of the user-friendly approach we brought to this project.

 

Building secure client login areas for financial services businesses

Does your business require a secure login area? We devise bespoke designs for each of our clients while adhering to strict security guidelines and encrypted passwords protecting personal data.

If this is of interest, please either email us direct or call to discuss your website project on 020 7351 4083.

More about the Oxford Investment Consultants project

Visit the Oxford Investment Consultants website

Our work on branding and web design for financial services businesses