Building trust through design: Eliminating dark patterns in digital financial services

• by Priyal Advani, Srinivas Balakrishnan and Surbhi Sood
• Jul 25, 2025
• 1 min
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MicroSave Consulting’s “Building Trust through Design” highlights deceptive designs in digital finance that exploit vulnerable users. Why it matters: This exploitation undermines trust in digital financial services, and is a call to action for ethical, transparent practices to protect consumers and ensure true financial inclusion.

This report shines a spotlight on sneaky interface tricks that quietly push users- especially those with limited income- into costly decisions they didn’t intend to make. By exposing five common manipulative design tactics like guilt-tripping and hiding fees, the report calls for ethical design and collaboration among regulators, providers, and policymakers. The goal? Creating digital financial services that users genuinely trust and feel confident using, making finance fairer and more inclusive for all.