Simplified Bank Transfers
Overview
Fifth Third Bank launched its first iteration of a newly designed mobile banking app for consumers in November 2022. This replaced a legacy app which created many outages, errors, and dead ends within the experience, making it a sometimes unusable banking app altogether. The first iteration of the transfer flow guided the user along their journey, each screen presented them with new options. User flows within the mobile banking app, while lengthy, worked well, but the next step was to streamline this process down to as few screens as possible.
Approach
By offering all available options on a single page after the user chooses to transfer, the process becomes much simpler and easier to navigate. This minimizes the number of steps and reduces complexity. While simplifying, we also needed to explain the layers of errors and transfer terms and conditions that apply to a variety of use cases. This required guidance in context of the selections, through clear labeling, simple language, and visual cues.
Results
Process
The process of creating this flow involved a deep dive into the competitive analysis of mobile banking applications. There are varied solutions from many different categories of mobile banking, including fintech, peer-to-peer, and traditional banks. I first conducted a card sorting activity, asking users to place the selections made during a bank transfer including dollar amount, account to transfers funds to, account from which the funds are transferred, the date the transfer is to be initiated, and the frequency if the user chooses to make the transfer recurring.
Design
One of the main enhancements I made to this flow was creating a one-screen design, so that the user did not experience increased cognitive load by switching from screen to the next. Adding the ability to edit within a modal, partially revealing the main transfer screen, allows the user to see the context in which they are making their selections. This also allows them to quickly click away to exit from the selection screen, giving them autonomy in the process, and the ability to quickly change context of their view if needed.
Obstacles
As AI is incorporated more and more into our daily lives, the ability to learn user behaviors would significantly streamline the flows within this feature. This would include the ability to pre-fill information such as upcoming bill or loan payments that could populate when the user selects the account they are choosing to transfer to, enabling them to do more that just a bank transfer from this flow. Other pre-filled information could also include the user's own accounts and frequent payees. This can save time for users and reduce the likelihood of errors.
Unfortunately, while this technology is increasingly becoming an expected behavior across most consumer mobile apps, it is still a security and privacy risk to implement these user-learned behaviors in the financial industry.
Another design hurdle for this flow was the need to create a solution adaptable enough to work with several third-party vendor's platforms, but maintain a consistent design pattern across all transfer types, including internal and external transfers, bill payment, loan payment, mortgage payment, and CD redemption.
Navigation and Usability
The one-screen transfer flow is inherently simple and straightforward. Users don't have to navigate through multiple screens to find what they need, reducing cognitive load. Users can quickly access all the selections and information from a single screen, saving time and effort.
Overall Impact
Simplified money transfers provide quick, frustration-free experiences for users. This convenience encourages on-the-go transactions, eliminating the need for physical banking or cumbersome payment methods. Increased app usage fosters customer loyalty, while reducing user errors and operational costs for financial institutions. This streamlined process differentiates a mobile banking app, attracting new users and enhancing user satisfaction. Overall, it allows effective financial management, increasing the overall value of the app.