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Product concept · Fintech

NorthPay

Onboard

Onboarding for a fintech account

Financial products have to collect sensitive data before anyone sees value, which makes onboarding the most fragile part of the flow. Every field is there because regulation requires it. The order those fields appear in is a design decision.

Role
Product Designer
Type
Concept project
Scope
Account setup, KYC, first use
Duration
8 weeks

Problem

Users, the business and compliance want different things

Users want to know why it takes so long, the business wants to know where people drop, and compliance needs every field. Cutting fields was off the table, so the work went into how they are presented.

  • 18%of US shoppers who abandoned a checkout blame forced account creation (Baymard)
  • 3phases: account type, identity, verification
  • 6steps, all visible from the first screen

Flow

Choosing the account type before any form

Choosing the account type before any form opens removes the worst failure: switching type mid-form and losing everything already typed.

Onboarding flow in three phases: account type (freelancer or business), identity with field-by-field validation, and verification ending in a setup checklist
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Wireframes

One job per screen.

Low fidelity locked structure and order first. A rejected version put the account toggle next to the first fields; switching type there would wipe everything already typed. Keeping the decision on its own screen prevents that loss.

Low-fidelity wireframes of the onboarding steps

Key screens

The first screen asks one question

The first screen asks one thing. Personal details come grouped, with the stepper always showing what is left.

Choose your account screen with business and freelancer options
Personal details form with the persistent stepper

States

Errors and waiting

Errors appear field by field as people leave each input, instead of all at once on submit. Verification has a pending state with a timeline, so people can tell the wait is normal.

Personal details form showing inline validation errors
Verify your account screen with pending document review

First use

A checklist instead of an empty dashboard.

After verification, people land on a setup checklist with one clear next action instead of every option at once.

Dashboard with a setup checklist and progress

Reflections

What a real engagement would change.

KYC can span days, so the flow needs save and resume. Compliance was simulated here; with real AML rules I would map legal requirements before locking one question per screen. And the rejected layout deserved a fair build to test against, not a strawman.

Outcome

Designed against the known drop-off points.

This concept never shipped, so there are no live metrics. Each decision is mapped to a documented cause of abandonment instead.

  • 1decision before the first field
  • 1question per screen
  • 6steps visible from screen one

Benchmark: Baymard Institute, checkout abandonment research.