Improving Onboarding process for a Mobile Banking App
The goal was to streamline user registration, enhance clarity, and optimize key interactions to improve user experience and completion rates.
Project: Bank App Onboarding Process
Role: UX/UI Designer
Industry: Fintech
Tools: Figma, Figjam
Improving Onboarding process for a Mobile Banking App
The goal was to streamline user registration, enhance clarity, and optimize key interactions to improve user experience and completion rates.
Project: Bank App Onboarding Process
Role: UX/UI Designer
Industry: Fintech
Tools: Figma, Figjam
Problem Statement
As digital banking becomes the new standard in Bulgaria, users increasingly expect fast, transparent, and intuitive onboarding experiences. However, research and user feedback from leading banks — FiBank, UBB, and ProCredit Bank — reveal a significant gap between user expectations and the actual experience.
While each bank offers digital onboarding, users encounter recurring frustrations: identity verification failures, difficulties when switching devices, and unreliable integrations such as Google Pay setup. These issues are often intensified by poor communication and limited support options, leaving users feeling stuck and undervalued.
Even tech-savvy customers struggle with unclear progress indicators, unexplained errors, and inconsistent app behavior. What should be a seamless and welcoming entry point into digital banking instead becomes a source of friction and distrust.
This highlights a critical opportunity: to design an onboarding experience that not only works — but feels effortless, supportive, and human.
Hypothesis
If we design an onboarding experience that is transparent, adaptive, and supportive, users will be able to complete the process more easily and with greater confidence — even when faced with edge cases like identity mismatches or device changes.
By combining clear communication, error tolerance, and streamlined verification, we can reduce user frustration, increase completion rates, and build stronger trust from the very first interaction.
Design Goals
Based on the insights from the competitor analysis and user testimonials, I defined four key goals to guide the design direction:
Clarity and Transparency
Provide users with clear guidance, progress indicators, and estimated time to completion during onboarding.
Use plain, reassuring language for every step — especially during verification or approval states.
Flexibility and Error Recovery
Allow users to easily retry or switch verification methods if identity checks fail.
Ensure users can safely restore access when changing devices, without requiring branch visits.
Reliability and Stability
Build a consistent experience across different devices and orientations.
Prioritize fixing critical onboarding bugs (e.g., crashes, failed payment integrations).
Empathy and Support
Integrate helpful microcopy and contextual support for common pain points.
Offer proactive support options (chat or callback) when users encounter friction, instead of leaving them in uncertainty.
Competitor SWOT Analysis
To better understand the competitive landscape and identify opportunities for improvement, I conducted a SWOT analysis comparing FiBank, UBB, and ProCredit Bank. This helped uncover key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats within their onboarding experiences.
Strengths
UBB & ProCredit Bank
- Superior Digital Onboarding: End-to-end remote account opening using QES (Evrotrust), offering speed and convenience (under 11 mins for UBB).
- Clear Value Proposition: Explicitly market the speed and the zero-fee nature of the digital opening (UBB) or the no monthly fee nature of the online account (PCB).
FiBank
- Established Infrastructure: Strong branch network and presence for clients who prefer in-person service.
- Existing Digital Services: Offers a robust digital banking platform (My Fibank) and various electronic identification means after a client is registered.
Weaknesses
UBB & ProCredit Bank
- Limited Scope: Digital onboarding is heavily restricted to Bulgarian ID card holders, excluding the large foreign/non-resident market.
- QES Dependency: Customer experience is tied to the performance and user-friendliness of the third-party QES app (Evrotrust).
FiBank
- Lagging Digital Onboarding: Appears to lack the one-click/11-minute “fully digital new customer” experience of its peers, potentially losing clients to the competition at the acquisition stage.
- Higher Customer Friction: Reliance on traditional methods for initial KYC/signing requires a mandatory branch visit or a multi-step hybrid online/physical process.
Opportunities
UBB & ProCredit Bank
- First-Mover Advantage: Already possessing the technical stack to be market leaders in digital acquisition, they can quickly scale digital sales of other products (loans, investments).
- International Expansion: The established digital KYC/QES framework could potentially be adapted to verify other EU/EEA ID documents, opening up the profitable foreign client segment.
FiBank
- Fast Follower Potential: Can quickly adopt the successful QES-based model of UBB/PCB to digitize its own new client funnel and immediately eliminate its largest competitive gap.
- Leverage Branch Network: The physical network can be repurposed as high-value consultation centers while shifting routine account opening to a new digital channel.
Threats
UBB & ProCredit Bank
- Competitive Pressure: While leading local banks, they are directly threatened by fully digital, mobile-first neobanks (Revolut, TBI, etc.) that offer an even more seamless, fee-free experience.
- Digital Risk: High reliance on the QES method means any breach or regulatory change impacting Evrotrust would severely cripple their entire new client acquisition channel.
FiBank
- Customer Churn: Risks losing potential younger, digitally native, and fee-sensitive clients to UBB, ProCredit, and foreign fintechs due to friction at the first point of contact.
- Reputational Risk: Seen as less technologically advanced than their main competitors in the crucial area of digital customer acquisition.
Outcome
The SWOT analysis provided a clear direction for prioritizing UX improvements in the onboarding process.
By mapping competitor strengths and weaknesses, it became evident that most existing banking apps struggle with trust, communication, and technical reliability during user onboarding.
As a result, the next design phase focused on:
Simplifying complex steps such as identity verification and device setup.
Enhancing transparency through clear progress indicators and helpful microcopy.
Building trust with consistent feedback, smoother wallet integration, and reliable performance.
This strategic clarity allowed the project to move forward with a strong foundation — ensuring every design decision addressed a real user pain point and differentiated the experience from competitors.
Key UX Improvements Visualized
The redesigned onboarding flow focuses on clarity, confidence, and control. Clear progress indicators, supportive microcopy, and flexible error recovery help users move through the process smoothly. Every screen is designed to make onboarding feel simple, human, and trustworthy — from identity verification to instant card activation.
Results & Impact
Expected Outcomes
Increased onboarding completion rates through reduced friction.
Improved user trust and satisfaction due to transparency and guidance.
Lower support dependency, as users can resolve most onboarding issues independently.
Stronger competitive differentiation by addressing real pain points ignored by other banks.
Solution Overview
The goal of the new onboarding experience was to create a trustworthy, transparent, and adaptive flow that guides users through account creation with minimal friction. Every design decision focused on addressing the core pain points identified from competitor research — reducing uncertainty, supporting error recovery, and building confidence from the first tap.
Spas Angelov
UX/UI Designer
SEE MORE OF MY WORK:
Spas Angelov
UX/UI Designer
SEE MORE OF MY WORK: