Product & Business development x Social impact • project 2024
Building financial confidence through India’s Kitty Parties
ROLE
Product Designer
& Business Strategist
TIMELINE
September 2023 - May 2024
TEAM
2 Designers
SKILLS
Product Design
Ethnography
Prototyping
Business Modelling
Entrepreneurship
Context
Indian women live longer than Indian men, on average. Yet…
At every life stage, from marriage to widowhood, they lose ground on the financial independence they need to live those extra years well.
Where is started
Our project began with the Stanford Center on Longevity Design Challenge on healthy aging. We focused on what shapes aging for millions of Indian women: financial insecurity.
Why It Mattered
Financial exclusion in India compounds at every transition: marriage, motherhood, widowhood, retirement. We designed for the whole arc.
The Opportunity
Existing solutions teach women in unfamiliar settings. We asked where women already talk about money openly. The answer: the kitty party, a monthly circle of friends who pool money and trust each other with it.
PROBLEM
Who controls her money across a longer life?
Indian women lose ground on financial literacy and independence just as they need it most.
Decisions Made for Her
97% of Indian women have their financial decisions made by a spouse or father.
Careers Cut Short
The average Indian woman marries at 19.2, and her plans often give way to her in-laws' priorities. Even with equal higher education, women face a 70% employment gap.
Confined to Home
5 in 10 urban Indian women leave the house less than once a day, held back by domestic work.
SOLUTION
Bala (बाला)
Bala, Hindi for girl, power, and strength, is a financial-literacy service for Indian women. It pairs a physical game toolkit with a companion app and brings financial learning into the kitty party, an informal chit fund where a circle of women contributes to a shared pot each month and the full amount goes to one member on rotation. It’s where women already pool money, make financial decisions together, and talk about finances with people they trust.
all the different Working parts
Monthly Game Kit
A subscription delivers one kit each month, matching the rhythm of a real kitty party. Budgeting, debt, interest, and investing arrive in small, social chunks, one gathering at a time. Each kit combines two modes of learning:
Intentional Game Mechanics
(Active learning)
Simulated financial scenarios, guided conversation prompts, and skill-building exercises get women practicing money decisions together.
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(Passive learning)
Bite-sized information cards, plain-language explanations of financial jargon, and collective play let learning happen naturally while the women socialize.
Companion App
The app extends the kitty party beyond the living room. Women play games digitally, connect with other kitty groups, and, if they choose, join larger networks to pool money and grow their chit funds together.
Outcome
Bala earned recognition on a global stage and is now moving from prototype to business.
FInal PITCH HEre!!! LINK
Research
We combined literature review, expert consultation, and field research with 55 women across India, aged 22 to 59, from low-income to upper-middle-class households.
Each method answered one question and handed us one design cue.
Field Interviews & Surveys
82% of financial decisions in their households were made by men or influenced by them.
18% of women described themselves as independent decision-makers.
Actionable insight
We set that 18% as the number our solution needed to move, and decided to build women’s confidence to take part in household money decisions.
Expert Interviews
They confirmed that top-down programs like bank accounts and government schemes stall when they overlook the social setting where women make money decisions.
Actionable insight
We decided to embed financial learning inside women’s existing social lives. Context learning.
CULTURAL PROBING: Financial diaries
68% of spending went to household needs, children’s education, and healthcare.
12% left for personal needs.
62% earned irregular income
74% saved through chit funds and fixed deposits.
Actionable insight
We decided to build on the trust-based, informal savings habits women already rely on.
CULTURAL PROBING: Card Sorting
10/15 participants ranked working-class women highest for financial decision-making. Many pointed to their own househelps as examples.
11/15 participants acknowledged the financial load poorer women carry. Many of these women are sole breadwinners.
9/15 participants hesitated to see women of their own class lead financial decisions.
Actionable insight
Women from lower-income backgrounds assumed that wealthier women, with greater access to money, have more control over it.
Upper-middle-class women saw it differently. Their household wealth rarely felt like their own, since they were seldom the breadwinners. They hesitated to claim agency over it.
Instead, they assumed poorer women hold more agency, since earning the money means deciding how it’s spent.
Lower-income women rejected that assumption. Being the breadwinner did not give them control either.
Each group placed financial agency with the other. Neither group felt it had it.
We decided to shift perception alongside knowledge, since social expectation limits women across every class.
CULTURAL PROBING: Quiz to test financial literacy level
Few scored above 50%.
Most had never received formal financial education.
Many described financial tools as intimidating enough to keep them out of decisions they were allowed to make.
Actionable insight
We decided to make simple language and low-pressure, playful formats core requirements.
Researching existing solution space
Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana and Mahila Shakti Kendra are two govt. schemes that exist.
Microfinance offers capital with high interest, debt-trap risk, and little ongoing guidance.
Government schemes promote inclusion with limited cultural tailoring.
Actionable insight
We decided to focus on the social, everyday side of money, a space no existing service was serving.
Kaboom! We found the perfect channel to tap.
Bringing every insight together, we looked for a trusted, recurring, social space where women already talk about money. Kitty parties fit every requirement: women gather monthly, pool money, rotate payouts, and discuss finances with friends.
Prototyping and testing
With the kitty party as our channel, we built Bala as a modular game kit with two learning layers. Active play uses simulated financial scenarios and guided conversation prompts. Passive play uses bite-sized cards and plain-language explanations of financial jargon. A companion app handles subscriptions and tracks progress between sessions.
Focus group testing with women
Whether Bala fits naturally into a real kitty party. We ran playtests with four kitty groups, 35 to 40 women in total, and observed how the game blended with each gathering.
What happened
What we learned
We built more player interaction into every kit, making power interactions and disruptions a core part of play.
Focus group testing with experts
We also partnered with the GameDesign Lab, India’s largest physical game-design community, to co-design and validate the mechanics.
What happened
A monthly subscription needs a stable foundation. Consistent core mechanics let players build mastery, and fresh content each month keeps every kit new.
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What we learned
We created a content pipeline. The core mechanics stay constant, and each month's kit brings a new financial theme, new scenarios, and new cards.
Business Model & Future Plans
PLAY
Phase 1
Build the monthly habit through game kits at kitty parties.
How
Kit sales and subscriptions, sampling at malls and restaurants, and partnerships with women-centric brands.
LEARN
Phase 2
Turn play into structured financial education.
How
Online and offline courses, built with partners like Khan Academy and Paisabazaar.
OWN
Phase 3
Give women access to capital, investment, and their ventures.
How
A women-first investment platform, business incubation, and a collective micro-fund offering low-interest loans.
What’s Next
We are pursuing Nasscom funding and a place in WTF Grant Cohort 2
Refine the game using playtest feedback.
Go beyond the kitty party with digital tools and localized content for households without an active group.
Partner to scale with financial institutions, government bodies & edtech to bring Bala into formal learning.
saraSanwal2026™