Project: Design Lead, Banker Portal Initiative
(Financial Services, ubank)
Challenge: Bankers at ubank, crucial for assisted home loan applications, faced significant inefficiencies due to fragmented tools, lack of visibility into customer data, and inconsistent processes. This led to lower conversion rates from leads to application submissions, reduced application quality, and increased manual effort for both bankers and underwriters. The project aimed to empower bankers with an intuitive digital experience to drive higher conversion and approval rates, improve efficiency, and enhance compliance.
My Role & Key Contributions:
As Design Lead, I owned the end-to-end UX strategy and execution, fostering a user-centric approach and collaborating extensively across a large enterprise to deliver impactful solutions.
• Strategic Design & Vision Setting:
◦ Led the definition of the design challenge to understand what bankers needed to know to assist customers with a D2 web application, especially when customers were “stuck or failed”.
◦ Facilitated critical problem framing and collaboration sessions, which were instrumental in orchestrating the vision and co-developing the Value Proposition for the Banker Portal. This aimed to provide a seamless and intuitive digital experience that would empower bankers, drive conversions, and contribute to ubank’s success.
◦ The Value Proposition focused on increasing banker efficiency, improving application quality, boosting conversion rates, enhancing compliance, and fostering a collaborative environment within the home lending process.
• In-Depth User Research & Insight Generation:
◦ Championed user-centricity by designing the test methodology, moderating, and synthesising findings from moderated user tests with 5 bankers. These interviews specifically explored what bankers needed to know when a customer is “stuck or fails” in the D2.0 application process.
◦ Through this direct engagement and strong heuristic analysis, I identified key challenges related to the customer design, such as the lack of lead prioritisation, inefficient serviceability calculations (manual Excel use), limited visibility into customer inputs/sales pipeline, and a highly fragmented note-taking system.
◦ Analysed qualitative feedback, revealing critical needs: 5/5 bankers agreed on the importance of persistent information; 4/5 stated data should match the customer’s view 1:1; and all 5/5 bankers deemed it essential for notes to be associated with specific fields/pages. These insights directly informed strategic opportunities, such as implementing a centralised Banker Portal and a lead scoring system.
• Roadmap Development & MVP Scoping:
◦ Led collaborative and co-design sessions to develop the project Roadmap, prioritising foundational capabilities for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) based on critical user insights.
◦ Influenced the MVP scope to include essential features: enabling bankers to view D2.0 applications (including eKYC and Illion data) and implementing an integrated note-taking system, directly addressing validated user needs.
◦ Ensured the design roadmap aligned with ubank’s overall business outcomes and OKRs for increased conversion and approval rates.
• Design & Enterprise Solutioning:
◦ As lead designer, I was responsible for the creation of High-Level UX Wireframes and subsequent Mocks/Design for the Banker Portal MVP, ensuring an intuitive and user-friendly interface that streamlined complex workflows.
◦ Addressed a critical enterprise challenge by advocating for and designing a centralised, integrated note-taking system, moving away from disparate local tools (Notepad, OneNote) to a shared platform accessible to multiple bankers and integrated with Loanworks for underwriters, significantly improving collaboration and application quality.
◦ Navigated complex system integrations across multiple platforms (CRM, Loanapp, Loanworks, SMS portal, call systems), aiming to reduce data duplication and provide bankers with a unified view of customer information and application status.
◦ Integrated compliance requirements into the design, proposing features like pre-scripted responses and compliance nudges to ensure consistent messaging and mitigate risk.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration & Influence:
◦ Cultivated strong partnerships with key stakeholders, including Product, Engineering, Delivery, Architecture, and the Executive Sponsor.
◦ Represented design in the “Discovery Team” and Solution Workshops, influencing the scope and solution design from early stages by presenting strong design rationale backed by user research and data.
◦ Collaborated with Risk, Data & Analytics, and Change teams, initiating Impact Assessments (RIA, BIA, DIA) to ensure business readiness and compliance.
• Measurement & Continuous Improvement:
◦ Defined key metrics for the Banker Portal, including banker efficiency (time spent, applications processed), application quality (completeness, error rates), conversion rates, and user satisfaction.
◦ Leveraged data to demonstrate impact, for instance, highlighting that out of 84 customers who indicated they would “continue online,” only 13 ultimately converted, providing clear insights for further design iterations and targeted banker intervention.
◦ Advocated for ongoing user testing and data analysis to ensure the portal continuously evolved to meet the needs of bankers and achieve business outcomes.
