iWorld
L&T Finance’s PLANET app records impressive growth with 2.9 Million downloads
Mumbai: L&T Finance’s PLANET (Personalised Lending & Assisted NETworks) application which has been powered by the user-centric experience designed by ZEUX Innovation has recorded significant growth in online transactions to six Lac and the app downloads stands at 2.9 million. In fact, just within a few months of its debut, the app had received over 35,000 reviews and has a rating of 4 plus on Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
L&T Finance has partnered with India’s UI/UX Design Company, ZEUX Innovation, to provide design assistance and increase user engagement and streamline the application process.
Commenting on the partnership, L&T Finance chief digital officer Abhishek Sharma said, “L&T Finance is committed to becoming a Fintech@Scale as part of the Lakshya 2026 plan. One of the cornerstones of creating a Fintech@Scale is the customer-facing application – the PLANET app. Since its launch, the app has constantly scaled up and generated commendable opportunities for both our customers as well as the company. And in this journey ZEUX has been an able partner, providing UX Innovation and breakthrough design, thereby leading to an enhanced customer engagement and experience.”
The three key anchors of the PLANET app – stakeholder engagement, loan ecosystem immersion, and user-focused app design – were drawn and implemented by ZEUX. In addition to handling user flow creation based on standards and survey data, the UI UX specialised firm, also managed customer experiences for loan disbursements and EMI payments. Its UX design approach essentially focused on three key pillars:
- Simplicity to declutter and make the journey as simple as possible. Hyper-simple task flows and journeys were the goals that were achieved to make it customer-centric.
- Efficiency to eliminate all the unnecessary information in the application. This has proven to be a crucial element in improving the application’s effectiveness.
- Inclusivity to emphasise different target users across India by adding illustrations and images, depicting India in its truest sense.
Speaking on the UX design process, ZEUX Innovation co-founder Saurabh Gupta said, “Our goal was to present a comprehensive picture of the loan application process while incorporating UX principles and L&T’s brand colours and guidelines. In order to define the business and user goals, we began the UX design process with a stakeholder vision. The task flow of both online and offline loan applications was then thoroughly studied to determine the different pain points. These findings provided a solid foundation for the design process to begin.”
iWorld
WhatsApp may soon let users to pick who sees their status updates
The messaging giant is borrowing a page from Instagram’s playbook as it pushes to give users finer control over their social circles.
CALIFORNIA: WhatsApp is quietly working on a feature that could make its Status function considerably smarter and considerably more private.
According to reports from beta tracking platforms, the app is testing a tool called Status lists, which would allow users to create named groups such as close friends, family and colleagues, and control precisely which group sees each update. It is a meaningful step up from the platform’s current blunt instruments, which offer only three options: share with all contacts, exclude specific people, or manually select individuals each time.
The new feature draws an obvious comparison with Instagram’s Close Friends function, and the resemblance is unlikely to be accidental. Both platforms sit within Meta’s family, and the company has been nudging them toward a common logic of audience segmentation for some time.
The move also fits neatly into WhatsApp’s broader privacy push. The platform has been rolling out enhanced chat protections and is exploring the introduction of usernames, which would allow users to connect without exchanging phone numbers. Status lists extend that philosophy from messaging into broadcasting.
Meanwhile, Status itself has been evolving well beyond its origins as a simple photo-and-text slideshow. The feature now supports music stickers, collages, longer videos and interactive elements, pushing it closer to the social-media-style story format pioneered by Snapchat and refined by Instagram. In that context, finer audience controls are not merely a privacy feature. They are a precondition for people sharing more.
The feature remains in development and has not been confirmed for release. WhatsApp routinely tests tools that are later modified or quietly shelved. But the direction of travel is clear: the app wants Status to be a destination, not an afterthought. Letting users decide exactly who is in the audience is how it gets there.
