Digital Withdrawal Feature

It's a fast world - and getting instant access to your investments digitally, is the way forward.

The end-to-end product development of this website and mobile application feature aimed to do just that.

Faysal Asset Management Limited (Faysal Funds) became the first asset management company to partner with a super-app wallet platform, bridging two industries with distinct regulatory frameworks. The goal? Bringing financial services to Pakistan’s unbanked population and fostering a savings culture in a country where savings-to-GDP stands at 17% and investment-to-GDP at 15%.

By launching a Mini App within Easypaisa, the country's largest payment application provider, Faysal Funds made investing instant, seamless, and accessible—allowing users to open accounts, make transactions, and access investment insights with zero friction. The impact was game-changing: 265,000+ unbanked individuals gained financial access, leading to an investment inflow of over PKR 260 million and reaching 1,100+ cities and villages across the country.

Onset of Challenges in Customer Experience

However, amidst this rapid expansion of seamlessly signing up for investments, Faysal Funds faced a significant challenge – the management of its user-experience strategy that reflected in increasingly poorer engagement rates. When optimized, incorporating the Mini-App would provide a powerful tool for customer acquisition and retention through seamless KYC onboarding via mobile application. Yet, as the company grew, this partnership began showing signs of strain. Each subsidiary within Faysal Funds operated independently, showcasing fragmented procedures of enabling customer investment and withdrawals through the Mini-App. This decentralization led to inconsistencies across different units, creating confusion among customers and overall poorer user experience far removed from optimal turnaround time.

An Opportunity Within Sight?

This challenge presented an opportunity – delve into the current redemption process of the user-investment journey and leverage the acquired technological capabilities to strengthen UI/UX experience which optimizes withdrawal turnaround time.

In summary of the matrix below, the current financial services landscape indicated a significant gap between ideal implementations and market realities. One-tap withdrawals, ideally offering instant fund transfers with minimal steps, remain largely unimplemented by most providers. Real-time processing is still far from the goal of minutes-based redemption, with days-long delays being common. Security measures like multi-factor authentication were inconsistently applied, leading to varied protection levels. User experience suffers due to fragmented and complex interfaces instead of the desired intuitive, personalized design. Additionally, regulatory compliance processes are still heavily manual, lacking the seamless and transparent systems that would optimize efficiency. 

User Persona

Here's a persona to make visualization of the target segment a lot simpler:

Aly, a 28-year-old Junior Marketing Manager, is a digitally savvy, emerging investor with a moderate risk appetite and a monthly income of PKR 85,000. He values financial independence, uses multiple mobile financial apps, and prefers simple, low-fee investment solutions. Aly expects one-tap withdrawals, real-time tracking, and minimal documentation. His key pain points include complex processes and lack of transparency, while speed, app simplicity, and peer recommendations drive his financial decisions

To withdraw funds from your investment portfolio instantly, first navigate to the "My Investments" page and select your desired fund. Next, on the fund details screen, scroll down and tap the "Redeem" option. In the following step, choose your withdrawal preference from the available options: "All units" for complete liquidation, "Partial units" to redeem a specific number of units, or "Amount" to withdraw a particular sum. After making your selection, you'll need to confirm the transaction by agreeing to the terms and conditions, verify your identity through an OTP sent to your registered email and mobile number, and finally receive confirmation of your order submission with a reference number and the ability to track the status of your withdrawal request. Here's a step-by-step outline 

The investment withdrawal process begins with a customer service initial request, followed by account validation. If valid, the request moves to the Operations Department for family investment details review and withdrawal eligibility check. After compliance approval, the request is either approved or rejected. Approved requests undergo tax calculations before determining the withdrawal method. The process concludes with either transfer to the finance department for processing a fund transfer, or referring to the next accounting cycle, or notifying the customer of deferred processing. Once completed, the customer receives confirmation of successful withdrawal. 

 The API integration phase focused on establishing a seamless technical connection with the white-label partner's facility, ensuring secure and efficient data exchange for the digital withdrawal feature. This involved comprehensive mapping of endpoint specifications, developing robust authentication mechanisms, and creating a standardized communication protocol that could handle various withdrawal scenarios. Key technical considerations included implementing secure request/response structures, error handling protocols, and ensuring real-time transaction processing capabilities that aligned with Faysal Funds' digital transformation objectives.

The User Acceptance Testing (UAT) stage was critical in validating the entire withdrawal workflow, encompassing both technical functionality and user experience considerations. Test scenarios simulated diverse customer interactions, including standard withdrawals, edge cases like partial fund redemptions, and potential system stress tests. The UAT meticulously evaluated the integration's performance across different user segments, verified compliance with regulatory requirements, and ensured that the new digital withdrawal feature provided a frictionless experience that met the core objectives of enhancing customer engagement and supporting the company's mission of making investments accessible to Pakistan's unbanked population 

Despite successfully reducing withdrawal processing to 1 day, the implementation revealed significant challenges including a high rate of unit processing inconsistencies (35-40%), a substantial drop in customer satisfaction (from 82% to 67%), and recurring issues with partial redemptions and unexpected delays. These problems highlight important lessons: speed improvements shouldn't sacrifice accuracy; thorough cross-system testing is essential before full deployment; customer satisfaction depends on reliability and clear communication rather than just processing speed; and complex financial transactions require robust exception handling and contingency plans for edge cases that might otherwise be overlooked. 

The withdrawal system transformation implemented three critical innovations: a centralized redemption engine with intelligent routing, real-time validation with proactive error handling, and automated customer notifications throughout the process. These improvements dramatically boosted processing accuracy from 60% to 95%, reduced support tickets by 68%, and increased customer satisfaction to 85%—surpassing pre-implementation levels. This comprehensive approach not only solved operational issues but established the organization as a leader in digital asset management by balancing technical excellence with enhanced customer experience