Reducing friction in money transfers, enhancing transaction transparency, and ensuring the product's scalability for future bank-specific customizations.
This case study outlines the iterative design and development process of a white-label retail payments app created at Backbase. The core product served as a foundation, allowing tailored customizations based on the unique needs of various banks. The objective was to deliver a seamless, adaptable money transfer experience while maintaining flexibility for client-specific enhancements.
Modern retail banking users don't like traditional banking. They are asking for an easy, fast way to deal with their banking needs. They want to move money freely between accounts and easily pay someone instantly.
How can banks deliver clients a delightful moving money experience by introducing modern features that attract new users and retain existing ones through seamless, user-centric digital banking experiences
The project aimed to provide a streamlined payments solution by identifying user pain points and delivering intuitive interfaces. The primary goals included reducing friction in money transfers, enhancing transaction transparency, and ensuring the product's scalability for future bank-specific customizations.
Team Collaboration
The development process required close collaboration between product managers, designers, developers, and sales teams. Regular feedback loops ensured alignment between technical feasibility, user requirements, and business goals.
Role
Product design
Activities
Market research
Prototyping
User interface design
Timeframe
2020- 2021
After the kickoff meeting, we realized there was no need to overcomplicate things. The industry is well-established, and by studying how other apps handle it, we could quickly get a clear picture of the competition.
So, I dove into researching U.S. payment systems to understand their complexity. Once I had a solid grasp, I created a straightforward design benchmarking analysis, comparing both traditional banks and modern digital (NEO) banks in the U.S.
⇥ Complex navigation for transferring money.
⇥ Lack of confirmation prompts, leading to transaction errors.
⇥ Unclear transaction statuses, impacting user trust.
⇥ Ensuring the white-label solution could adapt efficiently to diverse bank requirements.
User journeys were mapped to identify pain points and bottlenecks. The focus was on:
⇥ Reducing the steps required to complete transfers.
⇥ Ensuring adaptable user flows for varying client specifications.
⇥ Balancing simplicity in the core product with customization flexibility.
Using our design system, I quickly created several concepts for the account-to-account transfer feature in the first version of the payments app. I reviewed these concepts with the team, gathered early feedback from stakeholders, and prepared this version for the user testing.
To validate the concept designs, I built a quick prototype and in collaboration with the UXR team we tested it with actual retail banking users in the U.S. This helped us collect valuable feedback on usability and identify areas for improvement, ensuring the final design truly met user needs.
We were looking to understand how users interact with the payment process, what makes sense to them, and where we can improve. Below are the key areas we focused on during testing to make sure the design works well for real users.
⇥ Understanding payment types
Do users get the difference between the various ways to pay?
⇥ Expected steps in the payment process
Does the design include all the steps users expect to see when making a payment?
⇥ Ease of scheduling payments
How often do users schedule payments? Is the design easy to use? Do they understand the wording?
⇥ Usefulness of the review screen
How do users feel about the extra step of reviewing before completing a payment?
Here’s a summary of the key findings from our testing session:
The flow worked well
Most users found the payment process simple and easy to follow.Celebration moment was a hit
Users liked the small celebration after completing a payment. One user said, “It gives peace of mind.”Date picker needs improvement
While scheduling payments was clear, the wheel-style date picker wasn’t the best choice for selecting dates far in the future.Review screen was helpful but could be better
Users liked the review screen because it showed important information. However, some text was unnecessary and made the screen feel cluttered, slowing users down.Secret question confused users
For peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, most users didn’t understand the purpose of the secret question and found it confusing.Share button was unclear
On the success screen for P2P payments, users didn’t understand what the “Share” button did or what action it allowed them to take.
Based on the user testing findings and insights, we made some changes on the designs:
Review screen:
We redesigned the review screen by removing unnecessary text and reorganizing the information to better accommodate long names and account numbers.Scheduling:
Changed the date picker to fit long range schedule dates.
Success screen:
We took out the share button and replaced it with a reference number. Now, users can easily copy the reference number to share it with the recipient.
The white label payments app successfully delivered:
A streamlined, user-friendly money transfer process.
A scalable, white-label solution adaptable to diverse banking needs.
Positive feedback from stakeholders and retail banking users with successful customizations for multiple bank clients.
