In 2022, a financial company developing digital settlement banking services for large businesses approached us. The product team was preparing to launch an update for the personal account, which could be used by dozens of employees within a single company, each with different roles—accountants, financial controllers, corporate treasurers, and operations managers. Each is responsible for their tasks but directly connected to all participants in the business process.
Our task was to audit the service changes, help define the appearance of a modern and user-friendly digital service for settlement operations, and update the client's backlog before the release. In the end, we produced 5 analytical reports, describing growth points in UX, selecting the best market solutions, detailing over 60 service improvements, and delivering these to the client.
In this case, we will discuss how to create a personal account that helps efficiently organize the financial processes of corporations while maintaining the clarity and convenience of small business interfaces.
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Our initial hypothesis was that the best practices for digital settlement services should be found in progressive business online banks. The competitive market and investments in UX made them sources of the best practices in interfaces for managing payments.
For comparison, we compiled a list of progressive online banks. These included leaders from the Business Online Banking Rank 2021 and the most popular banks for small businesses.
In each bank, we studied the convenience of 14 settlement service tasks:
We compared the research results on these tasks with the client’s personal account and created a compliance table showing the differences between the client’s service and market standards. For each task, we selected an example practice to improve the UX.
It was essential to consider that the client’s users were specialized professionals in finance departments, treasuries, and accounting. Since the project did not include in-depth user interviews, we referred to the results of the Digital Corporate Banking Rank. The research materials on online banking for medium and large businesses included ready descriptions of user role models from large businesses, as well as analyses of their needs and user scenarios. This helped us further validate all recommendations against user expectations and tasks.
Additionally, we assessed the backlog that the client’s team initially planned to launch. It fully met market standards, but we found several growth points where it could surpass this level.
Insights from the corporate sector showed how large businesses handle a large number of accounts, organize document collaboration, and ensure continuity in settlements. The best UX practices from the SMB market provided examples of how to make complex processes clearer and simpler in interfaces.
Natalia Grek,
UX Researcher at Markswebb
Most of the recommendations focused on payments, the convenience of directories, working with templates, and currency control. The most important changes concerned the main page, payment history, and the support and communication system with the user.
A significant number of the businesses access the calculation functions through integration with internal accounting systems, which have their own control panels and notification functions for payment events. For users working through a personal account, the main screen of the service should become a control panel.
We suggested changing the working area of the screen to enhance the reflection of operational information and provide direct access to key calculation functions. The top panel includes a unified search bar, an event calendar, the name of the organization, an "Exit" button, a "Profile Settings" section, notification and help sections.
The working area should contain contextual functions, the most frequent tasks that the user encounters, as well as bills and balances for them, and statistics on documents.
During internal testing with the client, we received positive feedback from users. They pointed out the clarity of the information and ease of everyday operations.
Financial controllers in the personal account work with hundreds of payments at the same time. It is difficult to navigate this array, and even more difficult to quickly find problems. To solve this, a convenient table with a visual status model and indication is needed instead of the usual operations feed.
The status wording should be informative so that the financial controller can immediately determine what the problem with the payment is. The payment search bar and column filters also speed up user work in the interface. This solution was implemented in the client's personal account by the end of the project.
Testing showed that the new operations feed simplifies the search for problem payments and helps take measures to reduce risks: adjust document packages, correct formatting errors, remind signatories of delays, etc.
The summary calendar also helps to navigate financial events and transactions, view documents, and see their status, and we recommended adding a link to it on the main page. This recommendation is particularly relevant for banks, whose customers actively engage in foreign economic activity and need to keep track of key events in this area.
When working with complex products, even a skilled financial specialist may not always quickly interpret the system events, so it is necessary to make their work as simple and understandable as possible. To achieve this, we applied the practices of online banking for entrepreneurs, including onboarding features, contextual prompts, explanations for complex fields, and success screens.
We proposed implementing a system of contextual communications in the personal account, which is widely used in online banks. The system informs the user where a newly created payment will be located, suggests actions in the context of creating a payment order, and clearly reports the result of each step.
During testing, users noticed that these prompts not only increase their awareness of what is happening but also help them perform the next action.
This creates conditions for diving into features, facilitates the rapid training of new users, and ensures process integrity. The communication system allows for relieving the support service, and clear prompts and success screens contribute to this.
We helped the client identify growth areas relative to the market and UX problems affecting the quality of the customer experience when using the banking functionality. We prioritized the functional content of the personal account for corporate users, which is now as convenient as the best online banks for small businesses.
In the spring of 2022, all research insights were transferred to the client's product team, and most were included in release plans. By the beginning of 2023, corporate users of the personal account will receive an updated service for efficient financial process management.
This case study demonstrates a strategic and comprehensive approach to enhancing corporate banking services. By partnering with Markswebb, the client was able to identify key growth areas, implement best practices, and significantly improve user experience and service quality for large businesses.
Every year we conduct up to 15 studies of digital services. These are industry benchmarks that reflect the state of the market and trends.