Overview
Project intake
The BMO project team was rolling out an new credit limit increase feature on the mobile app. (2021)
My role
Product designer: designed the full end-to-end experience of the mobile credit limit increase flow.
Timeline
Total project time was 6 months, design timeline was 2 weeks.
Project goal
Reduce operation cost
Reduce processing costs
Increase lending product portfolio
Traffic to the credit limit increase flow
01
Increase efficiency
Reduce manual process time spent
02
Improve experience
Reduce approval waiting time
Introduce new features
Client satisfaction
Ease of use
03
Why are we doing this?
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The existing credit limit increase feature is exclusively available on the desktop platform, in person at the branch, and through phone calls.
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This process is entirely manual and typically takes 2-3 business days to complete the review of a single request.
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Approximately 100,000 requests for a limit increase are received, with 60% submitted through online banking. Among these, 80% of applicants are employed, making them eligible for pre-approval. Within this group, 60% are eligible for auto-approval, while the remaining 40% require manual processing.
How might we allow our clients to apply for more credit on the go easily?
Research
To pinpoint the opportunity and align with our goal, we undertook the following steps.
Understanding the project
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Facilitated workshop sessions with product owner, business analyst and solution architect to understand the technical flow.
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Coordinated communication between internal product team and external stakeholders to clarify requirements.
Understand the user
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Collected information from call centre and line of business regarding current pain points of the clients
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Created proto-persona
Finding summary
Proto-persona
James Smith is a 30-year-old man residing in Barrie works as an insurance salesperson at Manulife. He enjoys spending time with friends at the local sports bar, watching hockey games after work. He takes pleasure in purchasing branded items to showcase his financial capability.
A few times he can't purchase large amounts of items at the store, he had to be home on a computer, wait on the phone for 30 minutes or visit the branch to increase the limit.
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Effort: time consuming application process, long wait time on the phone
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Access: not available to everyone
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Stress of failed transaction: cannot increase limit while not on phone with an agent or at home on the laptop
He needs convenient ways to increase his credit limit at any moment and location, help him meet his buying need.
High level front and back end flow
Challenges
Not all scenario was considered
While I was mapping out the technical journey and envisioning the user scenario, I discover a scenario where user may want a different amount.
I hosted a meeting with the product owner and business analyst to explain the situation. We then contacted the line of business and solution architect to confirm whether that is a possible scenario. The answer was yes.
Project time was not enough for the scope proposed
Due to the missed scenario, there was increasingly more development work and design effort. Within the original time we were not able to make it.
Worked closely with the product owner and business analyst, we prioritize the happy flow, error states, and one reduce limit flow to kick off the project.
Design direction
Informed by the findings, here are the key elements guiding the new design.
Accessible
Surface access in high traffic relevant location. Increase traffic to the feature.
Priorituze auto flow
Auto flow works for 80% of credit card clients, maximizing impact. Increase client satisfaction.
Quick and short
Make as many steps automatic as possible, and the least amount of steps to complete. Aim for a client satisfaction.
Key design decisions
Entry points
I identified the entry points characteristic to be relevant and high traffic.
Collaborating in a brainstorming session with the greater design team, we identified the entry points.
Option 1 or option 2?
I faced a design decision regarding the placement of the "Credit limit increase" option: whether to include it alongside the credit limit information or on an additional page.
After gathering feedback from my project team and design peers, initially, everyone preferred option 1 due to its clarity and simplicity.
However, considering future features planned for the credit limit, we opted for option 2 to ensure scalability and consistency with the overall UI style.
UI flows on a bird's eye view🐥
I designed for 12 different scenarios:
1. Accept offer *
2. Accept offer but reduced
3. Accept offer and apply for more
4. Decline offer and apply for more
5. Non-eligible cards roadblock
6. Unemployed roadblock
7. Exceed numbers of tries
8. Request under review roadblock
9. Email: under review
10. Email: approved / limit changed
11. Email: declined
12. Tracking in progress *
Happy flow of credit limit increase
Where does the "back" lead to?
I encountered a design dilemma (again) concerning the functionality of the back button for users entering from various points like card details, card menu, and chatbot conversation.
After much debate, we as a team aimed for a dynamic back option that would lead users back to their entry point. However, this proved unfeasible.
Ultimately, we settled on directing users back to the card menu page, where this function is officially hosted, rather than a modal showing card details information.
The consent interaction battle
Our relationship with line of business and legal stakeholders is crucial to our success.
We faced a late request to add a checkbox for consent collection. While seemingly small, it could deter users from completing the flow. The argument was to prevent accidental limit increases, but we argued that users had intentionally reached this point. We proposed clarifying consent through content, and after discussions, we succeeded in implementing our approach.
Final UI
You can also interact with the happy flow in the Figma prototype.
Testing results
Since we had not access to business tracking information, I engaged the research team to do to conduct user testing on the flow.
Entry points efficiency
8/8 users found out how they can increase credit limit. We removed one entry point due to 0% of participants clicking on it.
Button label
The button label was updated from "Submit" to "Continue." Users hesitated to proceed without knowing their assigned limit. This change boosted the completion rate for this use-case from 25% to 100%.
Information clarity
8/8 users can understand why they saw the max attempt screen and what their options were
Usability of the flow
8/8 users have no problem filling out the form and complete the flow.