Atelier consulting · Product innovation

Give customers a reason to switch. Then keep giving them one.

Putting the same products as everyone else into an app makes them easier to buy, but gives nobody a reason to move their banking. Atelier helps you design products customers notice and competitors find hard to match, tests them with your compliance and risk teams, and implements them on the Zoral Finance Operating System (fOS), so you can keep improving them after launch.

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A faster form for the same product rarely moves a customer.

Many digital programmes put the existing range, with the same prices, terms and eligibility, on a phone. Customers welcome the convenience, then keep their salary, savings and borrowing where they were. You can see it in the results:

Digital applications rise, while your share of balances barely moves.
New customers open one product and keep their main relationship elsewhere.
Prices are set product by product, not by what the whole relationship is worth.
Every product idea joins a growing backlog of IT projects, so few are tried and fewer are improved.

The answer is not a better copy of the same products. It is products customers would move for, on a platform that lets you keep changing them.

An illustration: one journey, several reasons to move.

A generic example of the kind of product we help banks design. The details change with each market’s rules and each bank’s risk appetite.

With the applicant’s consent, the journey reads their credit report and sees the financing they hold with other lenders.
It offers a personalised consolidation of that financing, with pricing and terms that reflect a fuller relationship, for example when the customer’s salary is credited to an account with your bank.
It offers an instant credit line for everyday needs, sized to what the customer can afford.
It adds point-of-sale instalments at merchants where the customer already shops.
All of it in one journey, with one consent, one affordability assessment and one clear view of everything the customer is taking on.

Responsible by design. Each element is designed with your compliance team from the start. Affordability is assessed across the whole relationship before any offer is made, not product by product. Consent is asked for plainly and recorded. Consolidation is offered only where it suits the customer’s circumstances under your policy. Before committing, the customer sees the total cost, the terms of each product, and what changes if their salary is no longer paid in. Pricing and bundles are reviewed for fair value to the customer, not only for margin to the bank.

Any one of these features can be copied. Running them together, and adjusting them as results arrive, is much harder to match.

From idea to a product your committee can see working.

01
Start from what customers would move for
We look at your customers, segments and competitors, and bring what has worked in other markets, what has not, and what has not yet been tried in yours.
02
Test the idea with your compliance and risk teams first
Each idea is checked against regulation, conduct rules, affordability and your risk appetite before anything is built. Ideas that will not pass are dropped early. The rest are shaped by the people who must approve them.
03
Show a working version, not a slide
We build a working version of the product and its journey on Zoral fOS, with your pricing, terms and brand, so executives, risk and compliance judge the same thing. It uses test data, not customer records.
04
Configure it on Zoral fOS
Products, pricing and terms are configured in Zoral Product Factory. Eligibility, affordability, limits and offers are decided in real time by Zoral Decision Engine, on the policy and models your bank approves. Customer journeys and staff portals are built with Zoral Portal Studio, in your brand. New products run alongside your core and post to your general ledger.
05
Measure, then change again
We agree the results each product should deliver before launch. After launch, the Business Outcomes Layer compares plan with actual and shows the effect of each change on applications, balances, margin and losses. Every change is approved and recorded.

What Atelier brings to your product team.

Proposition and pricing design
Products, bundles, pricing and eligibility designed around the relationship rather than the single product, with risk and economics worked through.
Knowledge of many markets
People who have run banking, credit and risk operations, and have implemented products for lenders in many markets, serving customer segments from the underserved to the mass affluent.
Credit judgement
Affordability, limits and risk-based pricing designed by credit specialists, so that a more attractive offer is still a sound one. See Credit risk and decisioning.
Journeys and staff portals
Customer journeys, staff portals and partner screens built with Zoral Portal Studio and changed by configuration as you learn. If you already have an app you are happy with, Zoral fOS can work behind it.
Compliance designed in
Consent, disclosures, affordability and fair-value evidence built into the product and its records with your compliance team, not added late.
Results you can see
Targets agreed before launch and tracked by product, segment and channel, so the next change rests on evidence.

Ways to start.

Product innovation workshop
Your business, risk and compliance leaders and senior Atelier specialists assess where your range is undifferentiated and what has worked elsewhere. They shortlist ideas tested against your rules and risk appetite. You decide the next step.
A working version for your committee
One product idea built on Zoral fOS, with your pricing, terms and brand, for your executive, risk and compliance committees to see and challenge.
First product into market
One differentiated product configured and launched alongside your core, with its expected results set before launch and measured after it.
Product range review
An external look at your current products and pricing: where the relationship is not rewarded, where value to the customer is hard to evidence, and what to change first.

With your strategy advisers and integrators.

We work directly with banks, and alongside the strategy advisers and local systems integrators they already use. Where an adviser has set the strategy, we help turn it into products that run. Roles are agreed at the start, within your governance and project office. Your teams approve every product before it reaches customers.

Founded in 2004, Zoral has delivered over 100 projects. We have built and launched the complete platform for a Shariah-compliant digital bank, as well as multi-product loan origination (LOS), credit decisioning and robo-underwriting systems. We have worked with clients regulated by the FCA in the UK, the CFPB in the US and the central banks of Malaysia and Thailand. References are available in confidence.

Questions banks ask about product innovation

Strategy and competition

Won’t competitors copy us?

They may copy a feature. A bank that keeps changing is harder to copy. It tests the next idea and adjusts pricing and terms while others are still matching the last one. On Zoral fOS, products are configured rather than coded, so the next change does not wait for a large project. You decide what changes and when.

Can we start with one product?

Yes, and we usually recommend it. One product, launched alongside your core and measured against plan, shows your committee what works before you commit to more. Later products reuse the same platform, rules and data.

Do we need to replace our core?

No. New products can run on Zoral fOS alongside your core banking system and post to your general ledger. Your core stays in service, and you decide later whether more moves to Zoral fOS.

Regulation and customers

Is product innovation compatible with our regulator?

It should be, if compliance is involved from the first idea. We test each idea against the rules that apply in your market, such as consent, affordability, disclosure and fair value, before anything is built. Every product version, decision and disclosure is recorded. Your obligations remain yours. We help you design the product and the evidence to meet them.

How do you avoid products that harm customers?

We design for good customer outcomes from the start, as Consumer Duty in the UK and fair-treatment rules elsewhere expect. That means affordability assessed across the relationship, plain consent, clear terms and total cost shown before commitment, and pricing reviewed for fair value. After launch, results by segment, including customers in vulnerable circumstances, show whether customers get the value intended. Your product governance approves every product and change.

Doesn’t relationship pricing penalise customers who bank elsewhere?

Relationship pricing reflects what a fuller relationship is worth to the bank. It has to be fair and clearly explained. We work with your compliance team on how conditions are set, disclosed and reviewed, including what happens if the customer’s circumstances change, so the offer stays fair to every customer who receives it.

Working together

Who owns the product design?

You do. The products, pricing and terms designed for your bank are yours, and your product governance approves them. Zoral keeps its own methods, platform and general know-how. Rights are set out in your contract.

Do you only design products for Zoral fOS?

No. Where Zoral fOS is used, Atelier is the team that implements it. Product and pricing advice can also stand alone, and some engagements use no Zoral product.

Bring us the product customers have no reason to switch for.

A senior Atelier team will look at it with your product, risk and compliance leaders, share what has worked in other markets, and agree a first product to prove the idea.