Let us introduce you to
Sprucemoney.com
Sprucemoney.com (MVP, Dec ‘21) was designed, developed, and launched in under 4 months and in tandem with Spruce brand development by Public Address. After launch, we spent much of 2022 continuing to build out the site (MMP, Feb ‘22) while the companion Spruce app brought to life features and functionality. It’s rare for a company to create a brand from scratch, launch that brand’s website and introduce the product in under 18 months. But we did. Take a peek at Spruce and the website that announced to the world H&R Block’s first ever mobile banking platform.
The challenge & vision
Working towards a more financially inclusive future for all.
Millions of Americans do not have sustainable banking solutions, which makes it more challenging for them to maintain financial stability. In 2020, financially coping and vulnerable households spent an estimated $255 billion on everyday financial services.2 This is not okay. So, H&R Block decided to create Spruce.
We designed Spruce with one goal in mind: to address the struggles of these millions of families by bolstering financial inclusion and helping people build healthy financial habits.
H&R Block serves over 20 million clients annually. As a trusted financial partner with over 66 years of experience, the company processes tax refunds in excess of $58 billion annually. Knowing two-thirds of Americans are financially coping or vulnerable1 and 166 million Americans are not financially healthy, it’s our goal to help our clients improve their financial health.1 We want to provide fair, friendly, and progressive financial options for everyone.
The Spruce brand is built around an ambitious vision and personal promise: Make your money go further so you can too.
Here’s how we did in the past 365ish days:
Our primary initiatives:
• Build and launch Sprucemoney.com
• Design 8 unique feature pages, plus a resource and help center — from scratch
• Design and develop a savings goal calculator for customers to see how soon they can achieve their financial goals
• Quickly implement new promotions, including a $50 welcome bonus and offer to receive your tax refund 5 days early
• Implement a landing page for the Tax Office experience so customers can learn more about Spruce and have the opportunity to sign up or download the app.
What we learned along the way:
• How to clearly communicate feature benefits and calls to action
• The best ways to partner with the rest of the Spruce product team to improve sign-up conversion and drive primacy
• Methods of keeping our platform safe by staying one step ahead of the fraudsters
• How to continue researching and testing to understand what our customers want from Spruce
• How we can stand out from competitors by focusing on the financial health of our customers
Audience
What are they up against? Our demographic believes they’re bad with money and would like guidance to help with the principles of how to become financially healthy. Additionally, they feel that being good with money is nearly impossible because they’ve been burned by banks and bank fees in the past. This makes it difficult to stay motivated and achieve financial goals.
The Rookie and The Provider
Features
We established four pillars our features line up with based on consumer research, addressing significant unmet needs around spending, saving, borrowing and planning.
No monthly fees
You work hard for your money. Keep it.
Spruce has no sign-up fees, no monthly maintenance fees, and thousands of fee-free ATMs4 all around the country.
Early payday
Get paid up to two days earlier.
Pay day is a great day. But what if you could have your paycheck in your account up to two days early?2 You can, when you set up direct deposit.
Cash back offers
Get automatic cash back.
Make money when you spend money. With Spruce, you don’t even need to opt in. Enjoy automatic cash back rewards when you shop from select retailers you know and love.1
Saving goals
Money doesn’t save itself.
Spruce lets you automatically put money away for an emergency, a surprise expense, or those big purchases on your “someday” wishlist. Take the stress out of saving.
Free credit score
Start your credit journey.
Visit the credit tab in the app to complete the simple activation process. After that, you can view your FICO® score any time. You’ll also be able to tap into monthly updates and additional information about the factors that could be impacting your score.
Courtesy Coverage
Overdraft? No worries.
We've got your back. Qualifying Spruce members can get up to $20 of fee-free overdraft protection for card purchases.6
Tax refund recommendation
Get your tax refund up to 5 days early.
With Spruce mobile banking, you could get your federal tax refund up to 5 days sooner when you have it deposited directly into your Spruce account.7 Spruce can even help you put that money to good use with our tax refund recommendation feature.
Budget tracker tool
Build a budget, the easy way.
Easily see where your money is going. Spruce automatically categorizes your transactions and lets you choose which areas to keep a closer eye on with the Watchlist.
Bonus offer with direct deposit
We’ve got $50 with your name on it.
SpruceSM is mobile banking for people who want to be good with money. And a $50 bonus for qualified direct deposits is a great place to start.*
Brand development
The Spruce logo was designed with our brand voice in mind: welcoming, confident and direct. The condensed letterforms and high x-height make it versatile at all scales.
Typography
Typography is a way for us to apply our tone of voice to our written content. To achieve the range from welcoming and confident to direct and helpful, we use two complementary typefaces.
ITC Garamond is for conversational information (like a headline) while Graphik is for direct information (like a button). Together, these two typefaces give us the ability to make sure our content comes across in a voice that will connect with our users. This font pairing lead Sprucemoney.com to be chosen as Typewolf’s site of the day.
Color
Our Awareness Palette is used to stand out and be immediately recognized. We use only three colors to create maximum impact. Our Experience Palette is used to create a rich, vibrant and welcoming experiences. The palette expands on, and includes, the Awareness colors giving us more flexibility and personality across the app and communications. These colors are perfect for illustrations. Our Functional colors are designed to provide clarity within the app and continuity between H&R Block products. These colors work well with icons to quickly and clearly communicate context and information.
The build
Sprucemoney.com was built on the Adobe Experience Manager platform, which allowed us to utilize our Block Design System and internal Experience Library. Our library was created to allow for systematic page creation across breakpoints. Using the set modules that exist in AEM for our authoring and development teams, we created a system in Figma that allows us to imitate AEM page creation, minimizing the amount of effort needed to create cohesive work and reducing the chances of human error.
Essentially, this system allows us to choose the module that best fits our content, then drag and drop the content as needed. It’s a way for us to direct our energy toward getting the content in the right layout, rather than expending time and effort checking every margin, text size, and button width.
Designs
It was no small feat to build a site from the ground up while the brand was still being established. Working in tandem with our brand agency, development team, and our authoring team we were able to bring to life sprucemoney.com as pioneers of the Spruce brand.
Check out the real thing on
Sprucemoney.com
Spruce fintech platform is built by H&R Block, which is not a bank. SpruceSM Spending and Savings Accounts established at, and debit card issued by, Pathward, N.A., Member FDIC, pursuant to license by Mastercard®. Mastercard and the circles design are registered trademarks of Mastercard International Incorporated.
Apple and the Apple Logo are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google LLC. Message and data rates may apply.
1. Spruce Rewards powered by Dosh. Offers vary by user, merchant location and offer period. Check the app for offers. Cash back will be deposited in your Savings Account. See Spruce Rewards powered by Dosh Terms for details.
2. Early access depends on when payment is submitted. Funds are generally made available when payment instruction is received, which may be earlier than scheduled payment date. Requires $200 in direct deposits over prior 35-day period, not including tax refunds.
4. No fee to withdraw money at Allpoint® ATMs. $3 fee at other ATMs, plus any ATM operator fee.
5. Credit score is FICO® Score 8 based on Experian data. Your lender or insurer may use a different FICO Score than FICO Score 8, or another type of credit score altogether. FICO® is a trademark of Fair Isaac Corporation. This is a separate service from your Spruce Spending and Savings accounts, provided by Pathward, N.A., Member FDIC.
6. Courtesy Coverage only available for purchase transactions, ATM withdrawals, and over-the-counter withdrawals using your debit card. It is a discretionary courtesy, not an extension of credit. Requires opt in and $200 in qualifying deposits over prior 35-day period. Negative balances are limited to $20 and must be repaid within 30 days. See Spending Account Agreement for details.
7. Does not change IRS refund processing speed. Claim is based on making federal refunds available when payment instruction is received, which may be earlier than scheduled payment date. Depends on timing of the IRS's payment file. Available only for federal refunds. May be changed or discontinued at any time.
8. This is a separate and optional service provided by Atomic (not Pathward, which provides your Spruce Spending and Savings accounts).
* Offer from H&R Block. Requires 1) opening of new Spruce Accounts between 1/1/23 and 6/30/23; and 2) $200 in qualifying direct deposits within 45 days of opening. Qualifying direct deposits are ACH credits, including direct deposits (but not tax refunds). Deposits that do not qualify are mobile check deposits, internal transfers, transfers within Spruce from external accounts, or cash transfers. $50 will be deposited within 14 business days after completing all requirements. Spruce Accounts may not be closed or restricted at payout. You are responsible for tax treatment of funds. Limit one per customer. May be modified or discontinued at any time.
Credits.
Creative Director / Design Lead: Kenzie Tubbs
Writers: Ellen Fales, Becky Blackman
Designers (Initial): Haley Mosher, Jose Arellano
Designers (Active): Jose Arellano, Trevor Stark
Product Manager: Alex Alewel
AEM Authors: Zane Zwerenz, Rachel Nyp, Natalie Morgan, Matt Roiz