Halcyon Bank: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to Buy

Product Management
medium45 min0 submissions
Google
Scenario

Halcyon Bank runs a retail banking marketplace in UK, live in 13 cities.

Last month: 342,433 active buyers, 2,180 active sellers, 718,249 searches, and an overall fill rate of 46%.

That average conceals a wide spread. The three largest cities fill at about 85%. The bottom half of cities fill at around 12%.

Growth marketing has been buying buyer-side installs, because buyer acquisition is cheaper and the install numbers look good in the board deck. Supply acquisition is manual and slow.

Supporting data

scale

searches
718249
active buyers
342433
active sellers
2180
buyer to seller ratio
157.1

liquidity

cities live
13
overall fill rate pct
46
top 3 cities fill pct
85
bottom half cities fill pct
12

acquisition

buyer side
paid, scaling
seller side
manual, flat
Your task

Advise the general manager. Your answer should provide:

  1. Analysis — which side is constrained, where, and what the fill rate really says.
  2. Risks — what happens if you keep acquiring on the current side.
  3. Recommendation — which side, which cities, which mechanism, and the metric that proves it.

State any assumptions you make.

Ready to move forward? Up next: Northwind Energy: Plenty of Demand, Nothing to BuyNext question
How you'll be graded

80 points, 60% to pass.

  • recommendation15
  • market analysis25
  • risk assessment20
  • financial analysis20
Hint
Reveal suggested structure

Liquidity is local. Find the constrained side per geography, stop acquiring on the long side, and concentrate supply until density crosses the threshold.