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Fintech App Design Guide For 2021

Ever since the fintech revolution began during the financial crisis in 2008, traditional financial institutions have been left behind because of their unwillingness to adopt new technologies. The financial technology revolution has introduced better solutions for mobile payments, finance management tools, crowdfunding, peer to peer lending, and mortgages and loans. Fintech startups have understood that this revolution is mainly due to increasing requirements for customer convenience and buying experience. The key to a better customer experience is the balance of simplicity and security in the fintech app designs.

The EY Global FinTech Adoption Index 2019 states that over the past two years, the fintech services adoption has almost doubled, as now 64% of the digitally active users interact with fintech apps.

Fintech App Design Principles
Fintech apps that are very popular among customers are those which are designed to offer convenience and user-friendliness. These apps provide additional features to help customers manage their finance. The following are some of the fintech app design principles that every designer should be aware of before designing a fintech app.

Keep your focus on the customer journey
Before you begin with the fintech UI design, it is crucial to understand the optimum app flow and customer journey. While designing, you’ll be working on the mobile app page layout and content management. Hence, the customer journey should be designed to motivate the user to use the app.

Needless to say that the app should solve the user’s pain-points by bringing an alternative service to a specific set of users or more convenient access to services that were previously a hassle to access. Therefore, it is essential for you as a designer to grasp the particular unique selling points of that fintech app, understand the target user base, and design the financial app accordingly.

Correctly placing the call to actions within the app pages help users take desired steps. Also, the details about any features should be ready whenever the user asks for it. These practices will boost the user’s confidence in using your fintech app.

Don’t overload the Fintech App design with information
The most common mistake designers make with fintech app designs is overloading the user with information. It is not about how much information a page has; it is about how much of the available information will be useful for the user. While managing content on a page, you should always keep in mind the user experience. Consider the key information that the user is likely to need on each page. Most fintech app users cannot understand specific data or make sense of field-specific terms.

Most mobile app designers don’t focus on user comprehension ability. Users spend half of their time understanding information that is presented in boring text or excels sheets. Nobody likes to read just numbers; therefore the designers should visualize the data.

There is a quote by which you’ll understand what I’m trying to say – If you design the app good enough, the chances are that the user won’t know it is an app for financial services. In practice, a perfect fintech app design means an interface that is clean and easy to understand. The user should not need to be well taught in finance to enjoy using your application.

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Choose A Tax Saving Fixed Deposit

A tax saving fixed deposit is a financial product that is used to avail tax benefits as per IT Act 80 (C). Like any other financial instrument, it comes with merits and limits but overall serves as a great investment tool. Most financial experts recommend including it in your tax investment portfolio.

What are the benefits of this product and why should you choose it? There are two advantages of Tax saving fixed deposits . The first advantage for users is that they can receive tax benefit on their investment based on the tax bracket they fall under. In addition, they earn interest on the investment as well. Though the interest rate varies with each year, the total return on this can range from 18 to 39 percent, based on the combination of tax bracket and interest rate. When added up, it results in a considerable amount of returns.

While the investment range can vary from Rs.100 to Rs.1,00,000, most people choose to invest the amount applicable to their tax bracket. It should be noted, though, that the interest on this investment is taxable. While that may be a disadvantage, balancing it is the fact that you can choose to earn quarterly, monthly or annual interest which can then be re-invested for compounded interest. It is important to understand your investment strategy clearly in order to make the right use of this customization.

You must consider the limitations of this product too. The lock-in period for tax saving fixed deposit is five years. When you compare it with the lock in period for tax saving mutual funds, which is three years, you might not want to invest. These FDs, though, have a unique advantage over mutual funds, which is safety. Mutual funds can be affected by any major economic incidences in the market. From a market crash, recession to bully period, your returns are not assured. At times, it is possible that you may get no returns other than just saving on tax. It is also possible that the value of your investment is considerably depreciated due to lowered NAV. Overall, diversifying your investment portfolio will ensure that you can retain stability.

Another limitation that you should consider is liquidity. A drawback to this is the fact that you cannot get a loan against a tax saving fixed deposit. While this affects your financial state, many financial experts suggest that you diversify your tax investment across all financial instruments, including FDs. This will allow you to enjoy higher liquidity over a period of time.

In the long run, a tax saving fixed deposit offers secure forms of tax investment. You can earn interest and avail tax benefit too. As an investment designed to save taxes, it is efficient and easy to use. As most banks, by and large, offer a similar rate of interest, it is easy for you to find a financial partner for the same. However, it is also best to make sure that you use other tax saving instruments as well.

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Everything You Need to Know About Oxygen Concentrators!

Recently due to the rapid rise of coronavirus cases in India, there is a huge hit on the efficiency of the healthcare sector. Many hospitals are facing difficulty in providing medical aid to everyone and suggest those who aren’t critical try and self treat at home. In the midst of this chaos, we have seen the sudden rise in the popularity of Oxygen Concentrators. As Covid-19 care essentials have become so necessary we have to adopt using them in our daily lives. Starting from masks, sanitizers, oximeters etc, these have now become part and parcel of our life and living. Similarly, oxygen concentrators thus have become critical in treating breathing problems of Covid patients. Because it is a piece of advanced medical equipment, not much is known about it to the layman. This article is going to answer what oxygen concentrators are, how they work, and the process of getting one for yourself at home.

What is an Oxygen Concentrator?
As the name itself suggests, an Oxygen Concentrator increases or concentrates the amount of oxygen in the surroundings. Our body needs a certain amount of oxygen in order to operate. The ambient air around us is mostly nitrogen with only 21 percent of it being useful oxygen. It is our lungs that filter out the other gases and pass pure oxygen into the bloodstream. The amount of oxygen entering the body is called the oxygen saturation level, and when it starts going below a certain point, loss of bodily functions is seen. You may experience breathlessness, weakness, and these symptoms may also lead to fatal heart attacks or respiratory collapse.

Medical oxygen concentrators are able to take air from the environment and concentrate it to a much greater percentage for the patient to ingest. A highly concentrated dose of oxygen helps lower the burden on the diseased or failing lungs and thus more oxygen is able to be passed into the body to support life functions. The best feature of such oxygen concentrators is that they do not rely on any external resources and only convert the ambient air in our surroundings. These can also be run for long periods of time for several days, without running out.

How do they work?
The basic process of an Oxygen concentrator is to suck in the atmospheric air and to filter out the nitrogen from using various methods, leaving only a highly oxygen-rich gas. Oxygen concentrators can achieve this via two methods.

The first is Pressure Swing Adsorption, where a molecular sieve is used to separate the nitrogen. The air is passed through a sieve that is coated with zeolite. Zeolite is a material that attracts nitrogen particles and sticks to them. This means, as the air keeps passing through the machine, the oxygen keeps passing on, while the nitrogen is stuck to the zeolite particles and is filtered out. It is a very economical and efficient process for home and healthcare applications.

The second method, Membrane Gas Separation, is a very simple method where the air passes through multiple membranes. These membranes are designed on a microscopic level to only let oxygen through. The nitrogen and other gases eventually get filtered out through the membranes after multiple passes.

After the oxygen concentrator has converted the air, we get a constant stream of gas that is 90-95% pure oxygen. This concentrated oxygen can then be supplied to a patient via a breathing mask.

Using an Oxygen Concentrator at home:
If in any unfortunate scenario, one finds that a patient is suffering from low oxygen saturation and has to be isolated at home, based on the severity of their breathing, oxygen concentrators can be used. Oxygen concentrators can be used if the oxygen saturation levels fall up to 85%. Any more than that, then you will have to shift to denser alternatives of oxygen such as liquid medical oxygen.

Having the knowledge of operating an Oxygen concentrator is very important. As hospitals have very limited resources, they have to allocate them to patients who are fatally ill and require intensive care. For those featuring moderate or mild breathing difficulties, all medical professionals are suggesting home treatment. Not only will this act as a form of isolation for the virus to not spread further from the patient, but also lower the caseload of the hospitals.

The process is very simple, first, connect the oxygen concentrator to a source of power and turn it on. Then attach a bottle of distilled water as per the liters of oxygen required. Lastly, you can administer the oxygen to the patient through a nasal cannula or a face mask. Just connect the plugs to the oxygen concentrator and it will automatically start pumping the oxygen through the pipes and into the patient’s respiratory system.

Is Oxygen Concentrator useful for COVID Patients?
This is definitely a very widely asked question. The simple answer to this question is a definite yes. For anyone who starts facing trouble breathing due to COVID-19, it is necessary to provide them the required oxygen, or else the functioning of their body will suffer. The threshold of applying concentrated oxygen is when the oxygen saturation falls below 95%. This kind of fall in oxygen is one of the most common symptoms of Covid and can affect people with various degrees of fatality. Oxygen concentrators can treat patients to a certain extent. However, if in any case, the oxygen falls below 85% you must seek professional medical help at a hospital as oxygen concentrators cannot keep up beyond that point.

How to buy Oxygen Concentrators?
Oxygen concentrators are very high in demand and are also being sold for marked-up prices. Some of the best oxygen concentrators are produced by companies such as Philips Invacare, Inogen, and BPL Medical Technologies. Oxygen concentrators are also available for purchase at medical stores, however, there is a high chance of them running out of stock due to the extremely high demand from homes and hospitals.

In conclusion, oxygen concentrators have become one of the most critical objects right now. Their ability to save the life of COVID-19 patients at a time when the country is afflicted with so many cases makes them a very important medical product for everyone to have in case of emergencies.

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