Reshma Lokanathan's Portfolio

— Translating a complex, manual workflow into a streamlined, fully digital experience. By tackling market-specific challenges and balancing business needs to for accelerated approvals and improved transparency.

What I did

Conducted 6 in-depth user interviews across 6 major cities to capture diverse regional needs.

Led cross-functional alignment by facilitating workshops and collaborative sessions with 7+ stakeholder teams.

Designed a holistic dashboard view for project management, showcasing key KPIs like profit, inventory, and progress

Delivered designs with a modular and component-based structure, enabling rapid implementation in React.js

Collaboration

IMPACT

Faster Loan Processing

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Adoption in 1 year

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Adoption in 1 year

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Adoption in 1 year

Increase in loan volume

Problem Overview

The current system relies on legacy technologies, leading to inefficiencies, delays, and increased operational costs.

The absence of a fully digital and automated workflow resulting in fragmented processes, and lacks real-time collaboration.

The existing system is not scalable, making it challenging to handle increasing project volume and complexity.

Problem

Solution

REsearch FIndings

We conducted 6 interviews with housing developers in 6 cities across India ranging in different scale to understand the nuances and painpoints.

"I need to call the bank representative all the time to get an update/ETA on my application and this keeps going back and forth"

-Participant 3

A primary concern noted by all participants were the high dependancies on agents in the process and no visibility of the status leading to frustration.

Language barriers

Mid level developers face language barriers and low comfort with digital tools which hinder adoption.

Reliance on agents

This dependancy suggests that the existing ecosystem doesn’t meet user needs increasing operational cost.

Transparency in status

Users experience frustration due to the absence of direct visibility into their loan status, creating uncertainty and delays.

MARKET Analysis

India’s urban housing market is dominated by large multistory apartment projects (over 80%) often involving hundreds of units per property. Existing onboarding systems were built for single-unit property listings, leading to bottlenecks, data errors, and delayed loan processing.

COMPEtitors Benchmark

Other banks relied on manual Excel-based data entry, increasing risk of errors.

Real Estate platforms like MagicBricks and NoBroker optimized end-user property browsing but lacked enterprise onboarding workflows.

Gaps & Opportunities

Stakeholder Alignment

Business Needs

A key business objective was to streamline the home loan disbursement process by reducing application completion time and minimizing manual intervention. The updated platform was expected to drive higher customer acquisition in a competitive market, while reinforcing trust, credibility, and consistency in the brand’s digital touchpoints.

User Needs

Users needed a quick, intuitive, and reliable platform to apply for home loans. They were looking for a simplified experience with guided steps, real-time updates on application status, and easy access to required documents. With a growing number of users accessing services through mobile devices, responsiveness and accessibility across platforms became critical.

PRoposed Workflow

This workflow transforms the fragmented, agent-dependent manual process into a unified digital ecosystem that reduces processing time from 30 days to just 8 days—a 73% improvement—while eliminating dependency on bank agents as intermediaries.

Why this works?

For HDFC

60% reduction in operational costs
3x increase in loan processing capacity
99.9% uptime and compliance
Competitive differentiation
Scalable platform for future loan products

For Customers

0 branch visits for routine activities
Real-time visibility into loan status
Faster disbursements
Pre-EMI transparency
Trust and control over their home loan journey

For Developers

Faster cash flow
No courier/physical submission delays
Predictable disbursement timeline
Less administrative burden
Better project planning

Why This Design Philosophy Works?

Design for Efficiency

Manage detailed budgets across categories like housing, transportation to stay on top of your finances.

Design for Trust

Transparency eliminates anxiety → Users trust the system → Less need for human intervention

Design for Scale

Digital infrastructure handles 10x more volume → Same operational cost → Better ROI

Design for All Stakeholders

Win-win-win solution → Everyone benefits → Adoption is natural, not forced

Design for Resilience

Build systems that work even when things go wrong → Reduce single points of failure → Maintain service continuity

Design for Inclusion

Ensure system works for everyone regardless of technical skill, device type → Broaden user base → Improve adoption

Collaborative Information Architecture

We worked closely with stakeholders in an iterative, back-and-forth process to co-create a clear and intuitive information structure. We aligned on user needs, business goals, and content priorities, ensuring the architecture supported seamless navigation and discoverability across the platform.

Collaborative IA

Brain - paper Dump

The team as a whole came together for rapid ideation to generate all possible solutions while prioritising user needs. Our team of 4 generated 68 ideations and we narrowed down based on scope.

The final Idea

After multiple iterations and discussions with the stakeholders, we narrows down the final idea by prioritising and balancing the user needs and business goals.

Project Listing

The users can view the projects associated with their company and also locate them on the map to obtain location specific details.

Disbursements

The users can view the tower listing of a project and customer details. The customer can either be selected individually or multi-selected and the user can request disbursements at one go.

Work Progress

The developer can keep the banks informed about their construction status and show proof by adding images, documents and videos of the progress.

Loan Management Tool to Eliminate Agent Dependancy

— Translating a complex, manual workflow into a streamlined, fully digital experience. By tackling market-specific challenges and balancing business needs to for accelerated approvals and improved transparency.

The absence of a fully digital and automated workflow resulting in fragmented processes, and lacks real-time collaboration.

"I need to call the bank representative all the time to get an update/ETA on my application and this keeps going back and forth"

-Participant 3

This workflow transforms the fragmented, agent-dependent manual process into a unified digital ecosystem that reduces processing time from 30 days to just 8 days—a 73% improvement—while eliminating dependency on bank agents as intermediaries.

Design for Efficiency

Design for Trust

Design for Scale

Design for All Stakeholders

Design for Resilience

Design for Inclusion