Helping a Major U.S. Bank Simplify Joint Mobile Account Opening

This client is among the largest and most established banks in the United States, known for providing a wide range of financial services including personal and business banking, loans, credit cards, and investment services.

Banking
Financial Services

Opening a new checking account via mobile had to be straightforward for users, but redesigning this flow involved navigating a complex, hierarchical, and bureaucratic approval process. The ultimate objective was to make the account opening process effortless for users while ensuring regulatory compliance. Key hurdles included:

• Mapping out numerous possible user states such as holds by the IRS or other reporting requirements.
• Creating messages that felt friendly, approachable, and professional, while still being clear and accurate about each account’s approval status.
• Balancing transactional language with a personable tone without scaring potential customers away.

Common People’s team collaborated with a graphic designer and internal stakeholders to address these challenges by:

• Conducting interviews with internal stakeholders to gather flow requirements.
• Translating these requirements into wireframes in coordination with a graphic designer, ensuring alignment with brand design guidelines.
• Leveraging a robust design system that facilitated a straightforward build and iteration process.

Each message across the dozens of transactional steps and follow-up emails was reviewed to ensure it was clear, optimistic, and informative without causing undue stress. This included:

• Messages for various user states (e.g., additional identity verification, providing spouse’s signature, additional eligibility info).
• Gentle follow-up reminders that balanced urgency without professionalism or feeling clickbait-like.
• Ensuring final content was perfectly adapted to the bank’s proprietary documentation format for developer clarity.

The final product not only adhered to the necessary regulatory standards but also provided an intuitive user experience that was both personable and transactional. Through meticulous planning and iterative design, Common People delivered a solution that:

• Simplified the account opening process for users.
• Ensured all communications were clear, friendly, and legally compliant.
• Facilitated a positive and stress-free experience for potential customers.

Common People’s effective navigation of the bank’s bureaucratic layers ensured the exact right language was used every step of the way, achieving a balance of compliance and user experience excellence.