Discover Bank: Online Account Opening — Online Savings, CD, Money Market, IRAs
The project goal was enhance the online account opening experience noncheck bank products: Online Savings Account, Certificate of Deposit, Money Market, IRA Savings, IRA CD and Affinity programs. Drop off rates are continuously examined and enhancement recommendations are made to meet brand guide, UX and accessibilty standards. One major enhancement was integrating the vendor MX Tech to securely fund from external accounts.
Date
2022 — Present
Role
• Led end-to-end UX flows for mobile and desktop onboarding • Created responsive design system components • Partnered with overseas dev and validated enhancements with testing
Company
FCB Chicago for Discover Client
Key Findings
• Discover Online Savings Account Ranked First for Customer Satisfaction in Direct Banking study by J.D. Power 2023 • 100s of iterative enhancements and CRO tests based on UI, UX, Accessibility, Content and call center feedback • One key enhancement improved the funding success rate by +36%, the linkage success rate by +38%, and contributing to an overall 50% increase in bank deposit growth
Problems
Discover’s goal was to deliver a cohesive digital experience that reinforced its vision for a fully integrated, holistic banking platform.
An Outdated Brand System: While Cashback Debit experience had been examined and improved, the rest of the bank account opening flows hadn't been updated since 2016 and were stuck in previous design system iterations. The update needed to be done as quickly as possible, which meant no copy could be changed and certain components couldn't be updated to match the most recent design system.
Solution
The process required the team to flip this experience to the new design system as quickly as possible.
Noncheck OAO Update Process
1 — Working with Dev: To enable quick movement on dev side, sample screens were given to them. These showed how to modify specific elements that commonly showed up across all screens. 5 groups of 5 screens were needed to cover all the scenarios in all of the flows. Since these pages had been updated throughout the many years prior, creating consistency for all the notes and messages was required. Twice weekly calls with the overseas dev team enabled us to present our work to each other.
2 — Enhancements: In an ongoing effort to get the experience up to the standards of ux and accessibility in the current design system, an audit was done and presented to the client. The client then created briefs based on the recommendations and updates regularly implemented. E-Prob solutions to Customer Service calls were also addressed within a quick timeline.
3 — MX Tech: One major enhancement to the Non-check flow was integrating MX Technologies to the funding option. This expedites the connection of an external account where the user can fund to newly opened account through an external bank login experience. Online Savings and Money Market have the optimized experience through OAuth sign in. Even though it was less of a update, CD and IRA funding options were improved, but still included Trial Deposits. Step indicator reduced from 4 steps to 3 steps.
4 — Drop off rates and CRO Tests: Work with Densu to CRO test CTA's and headlines. Finding high drop off rates on the MX terms and conditions page, so exploration has been done to enhance this page.
Analysis
At this point there are 2 primary OAO flows: a Cashback Debit Checking flow and another flow for all the noncheck banking products.
A primary issue being dev resourcing for any updates we implement, in addition to often having to design 2 ways based on the flows, plus the app flow. For example, the CTA for non-check is disabled on page load and error message banners haven't yet been integrated. Also, some account setup features, such as funding, are available in the application flow for noncheck.
However, the benefit is being able to compare drop off rates and see which experience is performing better.
A few creative updates tested for validation: Clarifying progress by changing a 4 step progress indicator to 3 step indicator, highlighting security of social security number, removing mother's maiden name field, PII masking, disclosure updates (default paperless), universal registration on all bank products, confirmation page cross-sell between Checking and Savings lead to exploration of changing the Savings to mirror Checking with stronger direction on next steps after account opening.
> Shown below:
Funding: MX Technologies integration for securely linking external bank accounts. MX's external account login reduced the need for Trial Deposits required from entering Account and Routing Numbers
Get Started Page: Making a clearer choice distinction for Prospect vs Existing customers by removing the bifurcated CTA option. Also integrating expectation setting of how long and what the user will need for the application.
Source of Truth: The ultimate source of organization with all these updates. Working Pages are pulled from the SOT and creative exploration is done in a new file. Any finalized updates are pushed back into the SOT.
Result
Many updates and explorations large and small have been made to the noncheck flows. When looking at problem areas, I find a range of solutions — from being an easy lift to update to Blue Sky options, which elevate the experience, for consideration.
Despite great growth, recent application starts have dropped overall from 300k+ to 200k+, this could be for a number of market reasons — including the Capital One acquisition news and similar products in the industry. We are analyzing specific pages to understand where users drop.
Success metrics:
Throughput
App starts
Booking
Funding
Page drop off
CRO tests through Densu are being utilized to compare solutions, headlines and CTAs.
MX Integration Summary
The MX integration produced unexpected results that prompted updates to the account opening flow. Post-implementation analysis revealed a 14% decline in both OAO Funding (ACH) and OAO External Account linking as a percentage of instant-approved applications.
Despite this, users who initiated the funding process demonstrated significantly improved performance metrics — funding success rates increased by 36%, linkage success rates by 38%, contributing to an overall 50% growth in bank deposits over five years.
The working hypothesis suggests that placing the online registration step (creating a username and password) after the Funding page negatively impacted conversions, as some users may have felt less secure or opted not to register. Previously, registration was optional. The updated solution moved registration before the Funding page and made it mandatory, aligning the process flow and improving overall consistency in the onboarding experience.
🌳 Takeaways
Each enhancement brief pushed me to explore different facets of the user experience through in-market and out-of-market research, helping optimize the account-opening flow.
This project reinforced patience and process — even simple updates often required significant backend work. By breaking tasks into smaller pieces and testing iteratively, we stayed efficient and consistent.
Working with an overseas development team taught me the value of clear communication and adaptability during a fast-paced cleanup and migration to a new system. I focused on keeping designs minimal, scalable, and easy to implement across environments.