Business Banking by Choice

Banking Intro

Client

Choice Merchant Solutions

Project Date

2021

Business Banking Details

Details

Team:

I was the lead designer on this team.
I worked with the CEO of the company, and the Director of Design, and a few key stakeholders.

Features:

Move Money
Choice Pay
Virtual Cards + Spend Limits
Spend Track

Research, Workshops, and Wires

Creating an entire Business Banking Platform from the ground up was a huge endeavor but a very exciting one. It took a lot of research, iterations, and testing, but ultimately we created something we could be proud of and something that people were very excited to use.

Intricate as this project was, the user needed it to be simple and easy to use. We wanted to keep the patterns users are familiar with in banking but we wanted to remove the common frustrations and make sure they could do everything all in one place.

We spent a lot of time researching other financial institutions both for consumer and business banking. We also spent a lot of time looking at innovative tools and the way that some startups are using online tools to make certain tasks easier for users. We wanted to bring all of this together under one roof and create a great experience for users that no one had done before.

After conducting a lot of research, we began looking at pain points and opportunities and creating a list of tools and features we wanted to include. Then we began working on the Information Architecture and user flows for this project.

Bad Information Architecture is one of the biggest reasons that users abandon an experience and can leave them with a bad taste for the brand. It’s incredibly important to create a clear blueprint of your information early on so the whole team is clear on every step of the flow.

We also created personas to try to get more in the head of our users. We also talked to many of our merchants and potential clients to get some ideas on their frustrations and what benefits of business banking could help them the most.

We found opportunities were:

Same-day deposits
Better CashFlow Management
Virtual Cards + Employee Spend Limits
Budgeting Tool
Everything all in one place.

The next step was creating the wireframes and building out basic patterns. We knew we needed to follow similar patterns to existing tools so users would not be disoriented, but we wanted to make some updates and not sacrifice user experience by being too locked in.

Often times projects take a delicate balance of creating new products with better user experience, but also considering current patterns and the tech debt it takes to create new components etc.

When I began work on this project we had just completed a branding overhaul. So using our new brand guidelines and artifacts of the existing styles, I began to create style libraries for this project. Creating text styles, color libraries, and components on the front end saved me so much time and insured consistencry throughout this complex project.

Move Money

This section was the first part that we decided to work on, because we knew we needed to include all of these standard banking tools and features, and it helped us establish pattterns for the entire project.

We spent a lot of time researching other financial institutions and people who were using these features and how we could improve the experience.

Move Money Includes

A Dashboard Overview
Transfers
Pay Bills
Choice Pay
Wires – International + Domestic

Pay bills was an important part of this section because one of the frustrations that we found in our
users was not paying bills on time
or just taking a lot of time to complete this step.

We followed similar patterns to other Banks that do this well, and we incorporated some other features to make this a smooth and easy as possible.

Here they can star their top 5 recipients and they can quickly add in the amounts and pay bills all at once. They can also see scheduled and paid bills and manage their recipients.

One of the game-changing features we added, was the ability to pay bills by virtual card instead of by check. The recipient will receive an email where they can activate their card to use, or they can choose to transfer the funds directly into their bank account.

Choice Pay was also a new feature based off our addition of virtual cards to this platform. Choice Pay operates similarly to Zelle or Venmo but is an integrated part of the Banking Platform making it easier and faster to send funds. They can enter in the recipient and amount and send money. The recipient will recieve an email where they can activate their virtual card, keep track of the funds available, and even add to their mobile wallet. They can also choose to send the funds directly to their bank account. This is a much more secure and quicker way to send and receive money.

Cards

The Cards section was one of the sections we were most excited about and most focused on in this project. One of the biggest features we wanted to bring out users was the ability to create and manage cards easily. To create cards for certain purposes or utilities and set limits, as well as issue card to employee and be able to manage their spending, budget, and reporting in an easier way. Also, we wanted users to be able to issue bulk cards for things such as rebates etc, and be able to manage those all in one place.

Some other companies are doing this on a third party platform but users have to constantly move funds from their bank account to fund these cards, instead of managing everything in one place.

This section follows the pattern established in Move Money and gives the user access to a dashboard with information related to their cards so they can easily see their cards specifically, quick reporting, and any issues that need their attention quickly.

Cards also includes:

Full Cards Management
Create Card and Customize
Import CSV and issue Bulk Cards
Manage Bulk Cards

Users can easily create, view, and manage their cards here. We did a lot of research from other organziations and platforms and went througha few rounds of user testing to see what features, information and tools were most valuable to the user in this section.

We wanted to create an experience could be tailored to different people’s needs without overcomplicating things. We decided to give users the ability to see their cards in a list or grid view and still see the same information and be able to manage the card as needed. In the grid view, users are able to see any specific customizations made to their card.

Users can easily see what their spend limit on their card is, how much funds are still available, as well as when/if that limit resets.

They can also see what department the card is related to, which helps with budgeting and reporting. And they can see what days their cards are active for use.

Managers or Super Admins will also be able to deactivate/activate cards as needed, which is useful in situations of suspicious activity or an employee being terminated.

Users can also create a card in this section. Here they will be able to set up what kind of card they want to create:

Spend card – Set limits that reset over time
Fixed Card – A one-time funded card
A Virtual Card – Digital + Managed online
A Physical Card – Plastic Card mailed to user

Based on the type of card they choose, the user can then set controls for the card such as:

Cardholder Info
Card amount and reset period
Card restrictions
Merchant Categories
Customize Card

One of the features we added to enhance the user experience, was the ability to customize the card design. The purpose of this is to make it easier to manage cards, and see cards that are assigned to specific merchants, categories, etc.

Here users will be able to choose from some preloaded templates or they also have the option for limited customization. They can choose a color, invert colors, and upload their logo to the card if they want to use their own branding.

Spend Track

One of the biggest pain points we found in our users, was the difficulty with budgeting and having to use multiple tools to manage everything. We wanted to include a feature where users could easily keep track of their budget and also make adjustments as needed.

This design is an MVP solution, but in the future we hope to include more budgeting features and customizable features.

Within Spend Track they can see quick reporting on Total Income, Total Expenses, and Total Rewards earned through issued cards.

A user can filter by category, user, or department, and specific date ranges to easily track spending within their organization.

They will also be able to click on specific section nd view more details, latest transactions within that section, and they’ll have the option to split a single transaction into different categories if necessary.

The user will also be able to export any of these reports.

Click here to view Clickable Prototype.