Thrive by Design
Empowering Young Minds with Money Confidence
Client
NatWest
My role
Experience Design Director
Output
Website
Deliverables
Research, UI, UX
In partnership with NatWest, we helped launch NatWest Thrive, a unified digital platform designed to improve the financial wellbeing of one million young people across the UK. At a time when almost half of UK teens feel uncertain about their future, 52% of Gen Z believe their success depends on upskilling or reskilling, and 61% would rather start their own business than follow a traditional career path, NatWest saw an opportunity to step in with meaningful support.
By integrating three distinct services — Dream Bigger, CareerSense, and MoneySense — into a single, inclusive experience, NatWest Thrive delivers curated content, personalised learning, and real-world engagement to help young people build self-belief, confidence, and practical money skills, while strengthening NatWest’s role as a long-term partner in their financial journey.
The Problem
Fragmented education programmes across a complex ecosystem
NatWest’s financial education offering existed across multiple programmes, platforms, and touchpoints. While each initiative delivered value, they were fragmented, inconsistent, and difficult to navigate, making it hard for users to discover, understand, and engage with the right content.
From a user perspective, students, parents, and educators faced:
Inconsistent experiences across programmes
Unclear entry points and learning journeys
Limited continuity between education, engagement, and real-world support
From a business perspective, this fragmentation:
Made it difficult to maintain consistency, quality, and accessibility
Limited visibility into performance and impact
Slowed iteration and long-term evolution across the ecosystem
The challenge was to unify these disparate initiatives into a single, coherent experience, one that could serve diverse audiences, improve engagement and retention, and provide clear insight into what was working and why.
The solution
A phased, insight-led, multi-brand experience
To address this, we delivered a phased, insight-led solution designed to scale across audiences, brands, and regions. The platform was built as a flexible multisite experience, supporting separate banks and brands across Scotland, England and Wales, and Northern Ireland, while sharing a common design and technical foundation.
The solution was designed to be:
Accessible: Built to meet accessibility standards, ensuring inclusive experiences for registered users.
Personalised: Free registration unlocks tailored journeys, content, and interactions by audience and market.
Engaging: Rich, curriculum-aligned content, real-world events, and interactive experiences that encourage participation.
Measurable: Clear KPIs and tracking to monitor performance and optimise engagement.
Localised: Distinct site experiences shaped by regional needs, regulatory requirements, and brand priorities.
Scalable: A shared design system and technical framework enabling efficient rollout and future growth.
Distinctive: A dedicated Thrive identity that balanced alignment with the NatWest Group while feeling approachable and audience-led.
This approach delivered consistency at scale without sacrificing local relevance or brand clarity, allowing the platform to evolve over time while remaining trusted, meaningful, and effective.
Impact and results
Setting new standards in financial education
Thrive is more than a website, it represents a long-term commitment to empowering young people through financial literacy and confidence, while building lasting connections with children, parents, and educators through engaging, age-appropriate experiences.
The platform delivered:
A unified digital experience supporting students, educators, and community partners
Curriculum-aligned content designed for diverse learning styles
Personalised onboarding and inclusive access to resources
Real-world engagement through events and ambassador-led initiatives
Strategically, Thrive:
Strengthened NatWest’s position as a leader in youth financial education
Established a scalable foundation for future innovation and growth
Delivered against clear KPIs including brand awareness, user satisfaction, retention and engagement, and content feedback
60,000+
Registrations in first 6 months
76%
of children said they had confidence about their future
54%
of pupils said they had established good money habits
Reach
targets met in first 6 months of launch
THE PROCESS
Discovery and research
We began with a deep dive into the existing platforms, content, and users.
Key Activities:
Persona creation and user journey mapping across parents, educators, and community partners to understand the differing needs of each education proposition.
Component audits and gap analysis to identify missing functionality.
Content audit and education matrix to ensure all themes and topics were covered aligning with the curriculum for excellence
Stakeholder workshops to align on goals and expectations.
Strategic prioritisation of features based on impact and effort
Our time-poor users needed a platform that was not only educational but also easy to navigate, inclusive, and inspiring, one that reflected their real-world needs and aspirations and aided them in their delivery of education.
Design and prototyping
We designed Thrive to be flexible, accessible, and engaging for all users.
Platform Features:
Custom registration forms for teachers, parents, and partners to personalise experiences and capture relevant data.
Enhanced search with autocomplete and popular terms to improve discoverability.
Open content access across audiences, unlike competitors who restrict by role.
Learning plans and bite-sized content tailored by age, time to teach, and resource type.
Design Priorities:
Align with NatWest’s brand while giving Thrive its own personality.
Ensure accessibility and inclusivity across devices and user types.
Create a scalable structure for future content and feature expansion.
User research:
Conducted across multiple audience types to validate content clarity, navigation, and engagement.
Development and Delivery
We delivered Thrive through a phased rollout, allowing for continuous improvement and feedback integration.
Launch Excellence:
Prioritised core features for April launch - Pilot launched with 60 schools for 4 months and incorporated user feedback before full launch
Planned enhancements for future phases based on user feedback and performance data
Created a feedback loop to refine content and functionality post-launch
Real-World Engagement:
Thrive Live events and ambassador content bring the platform to life
Seasonal and dynamic content showcases opportunities and builds community
Event promotion and ambassador stories hosted on-site to drive local engagement
In-bank volunteer program to strengthen community ties and assist in delivering financial education in schools and community groups.
Testimonial
“Easiest, most straightforward and most effective scheme we’ve used. Great range of activities, very pacey, kept engagement.”
Teacher - Pilot test participant
“Your team have done a seriously fantastic job so far on the project. You should feel very proud.”
Lead client - NatWest
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