Perla
Project Description
An AI assistant built into a banking app, developed as a BSc final project at Reykjavík University with Pearl Group Iceland, Georg Ingi Einarsson and Arna Guðjónsdóttir. Perla explains banking terms, reads payslips, works out what parental leave will actually pay, and answers questions about spending and saving using the account data the user already has.
Perla was a BSc final project asking whether an AI assistant could take some of the friction out of a banking app. Our research kept turning up the same thing: people can see their data, they just cannot read it. Terminology, payslips, loan terms, and the eternal question of where the month went. Perla answers in Icelandic or English, in a sentence or two, inside the app. Tool access runs through the backend, so it can do real banking work without stepping around the authentication and data controls that were already there.
- Industry
- Financial Services
- Deliverables
- Mobile App, Chatbot UI, AI Banking Assistant
- Timeline
- 16 weeks
- Scope
- UX Research, Product Design, Frontend, AI Orchestration
Typography
Perla uses the platform's system font rather than a custom one. San Francisco on iOS, Roboto on Android. A banking app is not the place to make someone learn a new typeface.
People are reading balances, dates, and currency values here, so clarity comes before personality. System type also inherits whatever accessibility settings the user has already set, and it makes Perla feel like part of the app instead of something bolted on top of it.
Uppercase (26)
Lowercase (26)
Color Palette
Perla Green
#00703C
Deep Forest
#173C23
Soft Mint
#E2EFE8
Alabaster Grey
#F7F7F7
Charcoal
#1B1B1B
Pure White
#FFFFFF
Info Blue
#1C76A6
Amber Alert
#C26700
Error Red
#A92019
Perla Green is the anchor: a deep green that reads as financial without the cold blue every other bank reaches for. Deep Forest handles the darker surfaces, and Soft Mint, Alabaster Grey, and Pure White keep long conversations and financial summaries easy to sit with. Charcoal carries the body text, because pure black is harsher than it needs to be on a phone. Info Blue, Amber Alert, and Error Red are strictly functional. When money is involved, a warning needs to look like a warning.
