Create an inspiring investment platform that provides new perspectives on the impact of investments on our planet.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The way people invest money has a big impact on how the world evolves. So far, making financial profit has been the key incentive for the majority of investors. However, with the increasing urgency of global societal and environmental issues, long-term investments require a completely new perspective, one that helps maintain the world through forward-looking investments.
Globalance Bank — a Swiss private bank that operates globally — responds to this need. They want to increase transparency in the investment world, and help their clients and potential new investors understand the extensive effect of their wealth on the world.
Globalance Bank approached CLEVER°FRANKE to create a solution that will help them communicate this ambition in a clear and distinct way. We created Globalance World that enables Globalance Bank to provide their clients with an innovative perspective on their investments. Our solution positions Globalance Bank as the leader of positive change in the investment banking industry.
Case video
Globalance World builds on the bank's previously developed proprietary footprint methodology that visualizes the influence of portfolio investments on the economy, society and environment. Up until the launch of this platform, the footprint visualizations served merely as input for financial reports for their clients. Because of its analytical form, it remained unappealing and inaccessible to a wider audience.
Together with key stakeholders, we dove into Globalance’s methodology and existing user journey. A phase of interviews and research followed, where we defined and mapped the service blueprint, the diverse target audiences, their pain points and moments of opportunity.
After formulating Globalance Bank’s business goals and challenges, we defined a strategic roadmap in which we set forth key design principles, opportunities and a long-term vision. The new platform should include cutting-edge data visualizations, create interactive and distinct portfolio reports, and provide a guided experience for potential new customers.
Globalance Bank has numerous parameters and data points to create detailed reports for their investors. To leverage these parameters, our biggest challenge was to create a logical structure for Globalance World, yet still introduce a complete new way of looking at the investment world. We wanted to make it possible for users to discover the climate path their investments follow, the megatrends their assets are invested in, and where in the world and specifically in which countries their investments have a positive or negative footprint.
PEBBLE SHAPE
We started off by designing a visual language that will be the signature for the platform. Considering how Globalance Bank strives for sustainable investment, we decided to use an organic shape that finds its inspiration in nature. What we named as ‘Pebble shape’ is a data-driven symbol based on nine criteria that Globalance Bank uses to calculate the footprint impact.
The Pebble introduces a new visual language to communicate portfolios and individual assets with a unique and recognizable look and feel across the platform.
Inspiration
GLOBE
The Blue Marble, the picture of Earth taken in 1972 by the Apollo crew, is part of our collective memory. It shows the beauty as well as the vulnerability of our planet. We have introduced the globe as the second key signature shape of Globalance World. It is aimed at creating a unique and recognizable focal point for the interface. Representing portfolio data on the globe makes investments palpable and displays impact in a relatable way.
To harness many data points, metrics and features that Globalance Bank wants to provide for its customers and visitors of the platform, we devised an hierarchical structure. Within a portfolio, the user can dive into the globe view (to explore the impact of a portfolio on the world) and the asset view (to learn about individual companies and assets that make up a portfolio).
Each portfolio or asset can be looked at through four perspectives: Climate, Megatrends, Returns and Footprint.
WORLD VIEW
Each metric is introduced by a rotating 3D Globe. It visualizes portfolio scores and how they are distributed across different countries, which gives wealth impact a tangible image. While the globe provides a geographical view, the gauges show a summary and distribution of the data.
The 3D globe is fully interactive: Users can zoom in, hover over, and click on countries to learn about the underlying data.
Underneath the interactive globe experience, each page gives context and detailed information on how the client’s portfolio is doing. Users can also read curated stories in sectors that are related to their portfolio.
ASSET VIEW
Investors can also choose to explore individual assets one by one. We created two viewing options for this: a 3D city visualization and a map that provides a quick overview of how a portfolio’s assets are scored. Both are supported by a tabular view that allows users to dive into a portfolio asset by asset.
Next to the globe, two parallel views allow to explore all assets within a portfolio, each represented as a data-driven pebble shape. Where its color depends on the selected theme’s score and the base size on its influence on the entire portfolio.
The versatile structure of Globalance World enables people to make smarter investment decisions. With an easy to navigate structure and immersive visualizations, investors can fully grasp the dynamics of different portfolios and assets, and gain relevant insights whenever they need them.
CONTENT STRATEGY
Globalance World is more than a traditional investment tool: it has become an audience engagement platform that combines inspiring news-insights and perspectives on investment, companies and stock indices.
Behind the scenes we created an elaborate content strategy with editorial guidelines to maintain a unified look-and-feel and tone-of-voice across the platform.
INSIGHTS
Globalance Bank is on top of new market trends. Through 'Insights', users can read curated news in different fields and dive deeper into topics that they are interested in. Each story creates relevance for investors by explaining the global goals and challenges, and how their investments can make a difference. This way, Globalance World offers a comprehensive experience by keeping the users engaged and fully informing them through stories that matter.
COMPARE
Besides exploring portfolios and assets in depth, investors can compare different portfolios either with other Globalance portfolios or with well-known market indices. This way, clients can choose a reference point to understand the performance of their portfolio and its impact. This feature is also valuable for increasing conversion. New visitors of the platform can easily see how Globalance demo portfolios provide an extensive perspective on the impact of investments in comparison with other indices.
SEARCH
With an extra search feature, users get detailed information about a company that is not necessarily part of the available portfolios. This helps Globalance World become the leading reference point for finding information about the role of investments in a variety of fields.
DEVELOPMENT
The data used in the Globalance World platform is highly complex and very detailed. To manage it in a scalable way, we built a GraphQL middleware layer between our front-end and the API provided by Globalance Bank. This transfer layer allows us to structure and restructure data to a shape that suits the way that we visualize data.
The 3D turning globe was the primary technical challenge for the project: it is the first interface of its kind to combine a 3D interactive globe with 2D elements and a scrollable interface. After several iterations, we achieved high visual quality and a good level of performance, with several pieces of custom-developed logic.
RESULT
One of the hardest challenges in creating the globe was finding three dimensional geographical data for building a performant user experience. We built a custom algorithm that converts a data file with map data into a triangulated three dimensional globe with the right resolution for our purposes.
