How QUALITANCE re-invented the mortgage experience for BCR ERSTE customers

Together with BCR – the largest banking brand in Romania and part of the Austrian ERSTE Group, we built the most exciting digital mortgage platform in the world, and delighted customers with an unprecedently beautiful experience.

Mortgage: the biggest financial decision for 80% of us

Mortgage is rated as one of the top 3 most stressful moments in the lifetime of 80% of the western civilization population. BCR – part of the ERSTE group – challenged QUALITANCE to break the paradigm of time-consuming, paper-heavy mortgage and turn it into a magical experience for buyers and bank employees alike.

How we took mortgages from painful to beautiful

We committed to transforming the mortgage experience into a smooth, transparent digital journey that would delight customers and relieve them from wasting precious time and energy.

Our mission was complex and challenging: we wanted to simplify the mortgage loan process for both customers and bank employees, but also for notaries and sellers. All this while designing a scalable modern architecture that integrated seamlessly with the core banking systems.

For us, the customers’ feedback is paramount, so we engaged them in all the stages of our project – including the 48-hour rapid prototyping workshop we did with the BCR team.

A mobile & web platform for bank customers and employees

We built a web and mobile mortgage platform that helps bank customers and employees save time and enjoy transparency, predictability, and convenience.

The project took off with a product design phase including rapid prototyping sessions, design sprints, grooming, and demos. This approach helped us advance to the development phase with a user-validated prototype – the core of our MVP.

We accelerated the creation of the BCR/ERSTE mortgage experience by building on top of our Paperless Service platform – reusing technology, design, and UX assets.

MVP in 10 weeks, GA in less than 6 months

We built the MVP in 10 weeks and the fully scalable product in less than 6 months.
We reduced the average time of the mortgage loan approval by at least 50%. The average customer bank visits dropped from 10 to 4. Two months after the GA release, the platform prides on over 1,300 active users, zero defects, and no downtime.

While the average SUS score is 68, the BCR/ERSTE mortgage experience received an 81.9 SUS score – ranking as Excellent. Additionally, this usability study ranked our application in Top 25% of its scores.

Here is what BCR customers and employees had to say following their experience with the “Casa Mea” digital mortgage platform.