Making financial choices clearer from the start
PLAZO is a Spanish mobile financial product offering a prepaid card and a credit line. Customers need to understand which product they are choosing, how it works and what registration requires before committing.
I focused on the onboarding journey, combining a benchmark of 15 banks, flow mapping, usability testing and mobile interface design. The study involved two separate groups: eight participants evaluated the original flow and another eight evaluated the redesign. The challenge was to reduce unnecessary complexity while keeping product differences, payment conditions and identity-verification steps understandable.
Problem statement
The product presented several UX and product challenges across banking, credit, rewards, and onboarding:
- Market comparison: The benchmark identified account, payment and top-up features worth considering, subject to product feasibility.
- Value communication: Rewards and credit terms needed to be easier to understand during onboarding.
- Usability: Customers needed a clearer distinction between the prepaid card and the credit line before making a choice.
- Trust: Security and responsible-use controls were opportunities to assess, not features delivered in this redesign.
-
Date
Ago 2023
-
Client Name
Plazo
-
Tools
Figma
Research
Benchmark findings and opportunities
I compared PLAZO with 15 traditional and challenger banks operating in Spain to identify product patterns and opportunities. Alongside that benchmark, I reviewed an existing churn-survey report, shown here, covering transfers, top-ups, card activation, PIN access and support. The survey was historical input, separate from the onboarding tests. It helped frame the trust and service issues the product experience needed to address.
Bank Account
- Personal IBANs and P2P payments appeared in the comparison as features for the product team to assess.
- Neobanks are increasingly offering tiered subscription models with progressive access to premium features. This presents an opportunity for PLAZO to explore feature-led monetization with clear value differentiation across plans.
Credit
- Credit terms and repayment choices needed clear explanation, regardless of the breadth of the offer.
- The combined card and credit experiences reviewed in the benchmark raised questions about how to explain each product and its consequences.
- The benchmark suggested that a clearer credit interface could help customers compare options and understand obligations.
Top-Up Methods
- Apple Pay and Google Pay were considered as potential ways to make account funding more familiar.
- Bizum top-ups were explored as an additional funding option; their implementation was outside this case.
- Automatic top-ups were a potential direction to assess with Product, including customer control, consent and technical feasibility.
Features
- An offer wall was considered as one way to make cashback benefits more visible.
- Overdraft protection and early payroll access were benchmark opportunities, not features delivered through this onboarding redesign.
- Round-up savings and debt-repayment features were possible directions for further research, rather than validated customer requirements.
- Insurance offerings appeared as an adjacent product opportunity requiring separate commercial, regulatory and customer assessment.
Security
- Transaction notifications were considered as a way to help customers recognise account activity.
- Device verification was a security pattern to assess with the relevant technical teams.
- Gambling controls were identified as a responsible-use opportunity in the benchmark. They were outside the delivered onboarding design.
Research
User flows for Onboarding
I mapped the existing onboarding flow to see where customers had to interpret payment options, terms and account benefits before registering. This gave the team a baseline for testing the revised journey.
Define
User testing Onboarding study: 8 + 8 participants
Methodology
- Purpose: Evaluate how customers understood product selection, payment options, benefits and registration requirements in the original and redesigned onboarding.
- Methodology:
- Remote, unmoderated testing via Userlytics.
- Think-aloud protocol to capture natural reactions.
- Participants: 16 employed users in Spain, aged 25–50. Eight tested the original onboarding and a separate group of eight tested the redesign.
- Prototypes tested: Original and redesigned card and credit onboarding journeys. These were separate participant groups, not a repeated test with the same users.
- Focus areas: Product comprehension, registration steps, perceived effort and value. Prototype feedback is distinct from conversion or activation measured after release.
Main UX Insights
- Payment confusion: Participants had difficulty distinguishing card and credit options and understanding flexible payments.
- Hidden terms: Conditions and payment rules were hard to find or unclear.
- Unclear value: Cashback and rewards weren’t well communicated early on.
- Too much info: Old flow overwhelmed users with non-essential content.
- Visual trust: Users liked the design but needed more brand reassurance.
- Improved comprehension: Feedback from the redesigned-flow group indicated clearer understanding of product benefits.
- Perceived speed: Participants described the revised flow as quicker to complete.
- Better feedback: Participants found visual cues and guidance helpful during signup.
- Copy still needs polish: Some users requested clearer, simpler text.
- Access before signup: Participants valued seeing the product before committing to registration.
The ease and duration percentages in the report refer to the original flow. The two groups each contained eight participants, so the comparison is directional evidence for design decisions, not a precise estimate of conversion uplift. Feedback on the redesign also identified wording that still needed refinement.
UI Design
New User flows + UI for Onboarding
- Reduced number of screens to streamline the process and avoid cognitive overload.
- Separated prepaid-card and credit journeys so customers saw information relevant to their choice.
- Improved visual hierarchy for better guidance and focus on key actions.
- Clearer copywriting explaining flexible payments, benefits, and terms.
- Added tooltips and contextual help for conditions and repayment options.
- Enhanced visual feedback (icons, confirmation messages, progress indicators).
- Early visibility of main benefits, including cashback and card types.
- Included product previews before full registration to help customers understand the offer before committing.
- Improved form structure with default values and reduced input friction.
- Clarified difference between virtual and physical cards with side-by-side visuals.
Final Results
The main design decision was to separate prepaid-card and credit journeys rather than explain both products throughout a single flow. This reduced competing information, but meant customers would see less of the other product during their chosen onboarding. I prioritized understanding the selected product over exposing the entire offer at every step. Identity-verification guidance made the required steps explicit without presenting verification as optional.
The revised onboarding was implemented. Before delivery, the evaluation covered 16 participants in two independent groups of eight. Feedback on the redesign indicated clearer product benefits and a quicker-feeling journey, while showing that some wording still needed refinement. The outcome combined an implemented flow with documented validation findings. The study did not measure post-launch conversion, so perceived clarity and speed are reported as testing results rather than live performance gains.