belindahjonescreative
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Capital One Commercial Bank New Client Onboarding

It takes 30 days to onboard clients to products and services. KYC is a major blocker with no client visibility into the process.
Role: As a Service designer and Research lead I drove and conducted end to end exploratory research, journey mapping, and service blueprinting. I also facilitated cross functional workshops, created Figma wireframes and prototypes, and performed UAT and usability testing.

Deliverables: Research, research artifacts, prototypes and the release of an MVP Client Digital Interface

 

Federal law mandates financial institutions to collect, verify, and record information on anyone opening an account or acquiring a loan, including details on the business, key executives, and beneficial owners. Capital One requires the 'Know Your Customer (KYC)' process to meet this requirement.

 
 

After a recent reorganization. The design team joined our cross functional partners (product and tech) who at the time we’re in the midst of a two week customer acquisition and onboarding Innovation sprint workshop. They were building out a proof of concept (webform) using a software framework, and wanted to take this to market by end of Q4 (we were in Q2 and new to the onboarding space).

Given the tight timeline, I made the following user-centered recommendations:

  1. Break up the experience into steps

  2. Design a progress tracker to guide the user

  3. Provide a concise reason as to why we need their business and personal information (as part of the introduction)

  4. Provide error handling for quick recovery

  5. Use the Commercial Banks “Omni” design system

  6. Create a prototype in Figma and test it for quick feedback

  7. Need for discovery research to better understand the end to end experience and the needs and pain-points of all users

I used Figma to re-create the proof of concept with a progress tracker, incorporating the OMNI design system. I recruited proxy users via Usertesting.com, targeting experienced commercial banking users for faster feedback.

 

Figma wireframes for Usability Testing

Usertesting.com

Key screens in the experience

 

Key Insights and Recommendations

1. Populate existing client information in the form
2. Include descriptions for key terminology
3. Need for a comprehensive progress tracker covering all steps (7 steps)
4. Need for a non-citizen micro-experience for both key executive and beneficiaries
5. Need for a bulk upload capability
6. I recommended iterating on the proof of concept, adding features toward an MVP, and conducting discovery research to address knowledge gaps about other KYC user groups and the end-to-end experience.

Research allowed me to thoroughly explore the KYC space and gain extensive knowledge. I collaborated with my product partners to develop a clear problem and outcome statement.

Problem Statement: KYC is a manual, time-consuming, and risky process with clients often submitting incomplete information through non-digital channels, lacking visibility. CSAs repeatedly request missing details, and KYC Ops manually verifying them. With 50% of cases incomplete, delays halt products like loans and treasury management services. The goal is to streamline onboarding while ensuring compliance with anti-money laundering regulations.

Outcome: An intuitive and user-friendly digital interface that verifies client input, while guiding the client through the experience with the help of a progress tracker, allowing the client to save and exit if needed. Clearly communicating the security protocols to instill confidence in the new process.

 

Journey Mapping & End2End Service Blue Print

Journey mapping from key users

 
 

KYC End to End Service Blue Print

Opportunities Revealed/Validated by the Journey maps and Service Blueprint

 

  1. The KYC process is linear, time-consuming, and highly complex, requiring manual rechecks by various user groups throughout the entire journey

  2. A need for specialized KYC training for the CSAs’ who are at the frontline

  3. Opportunities to digitize the collection and validation of information

  4. Escalation of high risk cases

  5. Ensure the complete collection of documentation for downstream use

  6. Use of machine learning to categorize documents upon client submission

 

Facilitation of Cross Functional Workshops

As design lead I planned and facilitated a product requirement workshop with both my product and tech partners for both associate and client facing experiences

 

Planned and facilitated a Prioritization workshop using a 2x2 matrix on what features should be included in the MVP

 

Roll-Out of MVP 1

To meet design quality standards, I coordinated with content, UI, design system, and accessibility teams through three rounds of reviews, making updates to Figma before handing it off to the tech team. I conducted user acceptance testing (UAT) on the experience, testing the overall functionality and usability of the webflow. This also included verifying the adherence to design standards.

We faced challenges:
1. We didn’t have strong product support and had to lean in and work directly with subject matter experts, which caused a bit of friction as feature prioritization was lacking
2. To address the drop in client signups caused by a new compliance consent form, I began reaching out to relationship managers and treasury management consultants to bridge the gap and bring in more clients. I successfully recruited two clients who provided valuable feedback
3. Legal/AML/Compliance: there were multiple sign-offs required to go to market, creating huge delays
4. The legal language in use was not user-friendly, and efforts to modify it were challenging. We had to coordinate with the communications team to engage with legal, which caused additional delays in delivery

Metrics: An 83% increase in internal process efficiency and a 76% reduction in onboarding time for clients.

Final Thoughts:
1. The entire experience was an excellent learning opportunity. Information gathering/product requirements: for the next MVP I jumped in and begun to collect requirements for the MVP2 and conducting workshops with both product and tech.
2. For the following MVPs I begun setting clear expectations as to what design needed to have in place before we could move forward
3. With the little information I had gathered from previous working sessions, I jumped ahead and begun ideating, sharing sketches and low fidelity wireframes for quick product and subject matter expert feedback
4.I couldn't have accomplished this without the relationships I had built. I quickly realized that cultivating strong connections early on is crucial for success, and it's something I value deeply