Travexa

Project Overview

A fintech app for Indian travellers and students to instant Cross Border Credit & Payment Platform. Millions of Indian students and travellers abroad face costly, slow and complex financial options. Travexa solves this with instant foreign credit, INR repayment, emergency support and seamless onboarding bringing trust and ease to global finance for Indians.

Objective

• Explore user pain points, behavior, psychological needs

• Critically review fintech innovations & RBI, FATF regulations

• Benchmark competitors & define innovation gaps

• Biometric KYC, UPI, and insure tech integration

Problem Statement

Indian students and travellers face costly, slow, and complex cross-border payments with no instant foreign credit, easy INR repayment or real time emergency support. Existing solutions lack cultural fit and trust, creating a need for a fintech app that leverages India’s digital infrastructure to simplify global spending, borrowing, and protection.

Aim

The goal of the project was to design a user-centred fintech platform that enables:

• Instant USD and GBP credit

• Repayment in Indian Rupees (INR)

• Transparent foreign exchange

• Embedded emergency insurance support

The solution focuses on reducing financial stress and improving trust in international financial services.

Design process

Research

Secondary Research

The global cross-border payments market exceeds $200 billion and continues to grow as international travel and global education increase. At the same time, over 1.3 million Indian students study abroad, creating demand for better financial tools.

Travexa- Final Presentation_K24…

Key challenges identified include:

• High foreign exchange costs

• Slow international transfers

• Complex compliance and onboarding

• Limited financial protection for emergencies

• Lack of transparent pricing

Users also rely heavily on family financial support while abroad, which increases the need for transparent and predictable repayment structures.

Competitor Analysis

No platform offers

• INR repayment

• Foreign currency instant credit

• Embedded, geo-triggered insurance

• Indian centric UX

Primary Research Survey

Primary research included surveys and interviews with travellers and international students.

Primary Research Interview

Affinity Diagram

Highlights emotional, trust, and FX-related stress points across the journey

• Shows strong preference for INR repayment and predictable flows

• Reveals importance of emergency support and family involvement

• Informed key design and feature decisions

Personas

International travellers prioritise convenience and safety during short trips. They want transparent FX rates, instant access to funds, simple card controls, and an all-in-one app that avoids foreign banking complexity.

Students manage overseas expenses independently for the first time and feel stressed by FX volatility, unclear fees, and emergencies. They need INR-based repayments, fast onboarding, emergency support, and family reassurance without losing autonomy.

Persona (additional persona)

Parents (additional persona) act as reassurance stakeholders. They value predictable INR visibility, emergency alerts, and read-only oversight, focusing on safety and budget clarity rather than daily control.

Customer journey Map

Customer journey maps illustrate how users experience Travexa from first discovery to ongoing use. They highlight user actions, thoughts, emotions, and pain points at each stage, making it easier to identify patterns and opportunities for improvement across the entire journey.

Ideation

Moscow

The MoSCoW framework was used to focus the MVP on features that reduce stress and build trust. Core priorities include fast KYC, INR-based repayment, transparent FX, and emergency support, as these were consistently validated through research.

Supporting features enhance usability and confidence, while non-essential or high-complexity features were excluded to keep the product simple, compliant, and scalable.

Bull’s Eye

• Primary Features: These are the essential functionalities that the app cannot operate without, such as the INR-based repayment, instant credit access, fast KYC, transparent FX, and emergency support.

• Secondary Features: These features significantly improve the user experience and enhance the core features, but they are not required for the app to function at a basic level. Features like enhance trust and usability through family visibility, FX alerts, budgeting tools, and security controls.

• Tertiary Features: add convenience and engagement but are intentionally deprioritised to keep the MVP focused, simple and scalable.

6UP Method

Information Architecture

A central Home hub provides quick access to balances, credit, FX rates, and emergencies, with clear separation between credit, payments, wallet, insurance, and settings to keep high-priority tasks fast and easy while reducing cognitive load.

Brand Design

UI Screens

Usability Testing Insights

Future work

Broader user research

• Longitudinal usability studies

• Emotional & cognitive load measurement

• Scenario-based stress testing

• Market benchmarking

• Metric refinement