Context
Standard Bank International relied on a paper-based onboarding process used by customers, Independent Financial Advisors, and internal teams across multiple regions. While the process was well understood internally, it was slow to complete, difficult to scale, and heavily dependent on manual handling.
The lack of a digital foundation limited visibility, consistency, and operational insight. This was particularly challenging in regions with distributed teams and variable infrastructure, where accurate data capture and reporting were essential to downstream systems and compliance.
My Role
I was responsible for problem framing, end-to-end journey design, interaction design, accessibility strategy, and design system contribution. I worked closely with client stakeholders, engineers, and compliance teams throughout delivery.
The work was led and overseen by Design Manager Noel Mallet, who provided strategic direction, design review, and formal sign-off, and guided the overall testing approach.
Collaborators
Onboarding channels
Standard Bank's internal analysts and research identified these as existing onboarding channels.
The challenge
Paper onboarding created friction at every layer:
Average completion time was measured in weeks, with a drop-off rate above 60%
Applications required manual re-entry across 3 separate internal systems
Inconsistent data quality across regions
High compliance risk driven by user error
UX Strategy & problem framing
Rather than simply digitising existing forms, we reframed onboarding as an end-to-end digital service, supported by automation and system integration.
This wasn’t about running a longer discovery phase, but about recognising the difference between the channel and the existing design format. The forms and processes had been built for paper, and recreating them straight into a digital interface would have preserved many of the same constraints.
Reviewing competitor onboarding journeys helped stakeholders to understand this, highlighting how structure, sequencing, and interaction naturally evolve in a digital environment. Once that difference was clear, the conversation shifted away from digitisation and towards designing an experience that was optimised for digital channels.
Defining the experience model
With onboarding reframed as a service rather than a set of documents, the next question was how best to structure the experience to support both self-service customers and advisor-led onboarding at scale.
Several viable models were explored:
Digitised forms only
Where customers and IFAs would access the same forms without any additional orchestration or management layer.
Separate customer and IFA systems
Where advisors would use a dedicated onboarding tool distinct from the customer-facing experience.
A shared application layer with an advisor-facing portal
where a single set of forms would be reused across journeys, with additional tooling for IFAs layered on top.
Each option was assessed against a consistent set of requirements:
Consistent compliance and validation rules across regions
Data quality and reduction of manual re-entry
Support for both self-service and advisor-assisted journeys
Operational scalability without duplicating systems or logic
Technical feasibility within existing platform constraints
The comparison below summarises how each option performed against those requirements:
The onboarding experience was built around a single set of digitally optimised application forms. These forms acted as the shared core, handling validation, data capture, and compliance consistently, regardless of whether onboarding was completed directly by a customer or with advisor support.
An advisor-facing portal sat alongside this core experience. Rather than introducing a separate onboarding journey, the portal allowed IFAs to manage multiple applications, track progress, and support customers through completion, all while using the same underlying forms.
This approach made it possible to support both self-service and advisor-assisted onboarding without duplicating logic, creating parallel systems, or increasing operational risk.
Research, testing & validation
Rather than starting from scratch, I built on existing research and validated designs throughout delivery, working with Design Manager Noel Mallet to shape the testing structure and approach.
Iterative testing across low, mid, and high-fidelity designs, with test questions and structure shaped collaboratively.
End-to-end journey testing with IFAs and internal operational users.
Structured sessions in controlled environments, with behavioural observation and recorded feedback. I conducted the sessions and analysis, with oversight and guidance on testing methodology.
Brand & accessibility
All work was delivered within Standard Bank's existing brand framework.
Where the system fell short, I extended it.
New accessible form components
Contrast-safe colour usage
Scalable typography
Mobile-responsive interaction patterns
These updates were captured in a lightweight component library to support consistency across teams.
Technical collaboration & journey design
I worked closely with engineering and platform teams to ensure designs reflected technical reality.
Early mapping of API dependencies.
Journey design aligning UX, legal, and system flows - especially Salesforce state/processes.
Workshops to surface assumptions and integration risks.
Designing the experience
Application journeys
I designed the customer onboarding journeys, focusing on clear flow, sensible sequencing, and accessibility.
Design priorities:
Desktop-first layouts with defined mobile behaviour.
Progressive disclosure to reduce cognitive load.
Clear validation and error handling to prevent downstream issues.
Low-fidelity wireframes
Mixed-fidelity wireframes
Mixed-fidelity compared to final design
Final application form designs
Update emails
IFA Portal
Research showed IFAs primarily used desktop and tablet devices, often in challenging environments.
Design priorities:
Clear application management and status visibility.
Support for offline or interrupted workflows, (auto-save triggered on every field change, with a visible "last saved" timestamp so advisors trusted they wouldn't lose progress).
Reduced duplication between customer and advisor actions.
Wireframes
Testing affecting final design
Final designs
Challenger bank concept
After the core workstreams were delivered, the client asked for a forward-looking exploration: what would onboarding look like if legacy constraints were removed?
I produced concept designs that reduced the journey to 5-10 minutes by mirroring the journey design of challenger and neo-banks such as Revolut and Monzo, removing redundant data collection where the system could infer or pre-fill with exisitng data sets or APIs, and front-loading the decisions that determined which fields were actually required.
Handover & enablement
Beyond design delivery, I supported rollout and adoption.
Internal workshops and documentation
Stakeholder alignment and handover presentations
Design rationale captured to support future iteration
Outcomes
Projected onboarding completion time reduced from days to under 45 minutes.
Estimated 70% reduction in manual data re-entry for operations teams.
Error rates in submitted applications dropped measurably in pilot testing.
Stronger alignment between UX, compliance, and engineering teams.
A shared vision for how onboarding could evolve beyond legacy constraints.
