Digitize the business verification (KYB) onboarding process
Business Goal
Reduce operational costs and speed up corporate client onboarding
Outcome
$1.1M savings · 70% faster · 3× onboarding speed
03 - Business Context
Why this project existed
The client is a leading Ukrainian bank - one of the country's largest private banks with a significant corporate client base. Before this project, every new business client went through a fully manual KYB (Know Your Business) verification process - a legal requirement under Ukrainian financial regulation before any business account can be opened.
Relationship managers collected documents in person or by email, manually verified each one against government registries, and entered data into the core banking system by hand. Each case involved 15–30 documents across multiple legal and compliance checks. Average turnaround: 8–14 business days.
With corporate onboarding growing year-over-year, the manual process couldn't scale. The compliance team was at capacity, processing errors were increasing, and business clients were dropping off mid-process due to the friction. The bank saw a clear opportunity: digitize the verification flow, reduce cost per case, and turn onboarding speed into a competitive advantage.
"Every day a business waited for account approval was a day they could walk to a competitor bank."
04 - Goals
What we were solving for
Business Goals
Reduce operational cost per KYB case
Eliminate manual data re-entry into core banking systems
Scale corporate onboarding without adding headcount
Reduce compliance processing errors
Decrease branch workload on document collection
User Goals
Understand exactly what documents are needed upfront
Submit everything in one place, not via email
Track verification progress without calling the bank
Avoid resubmitting documents that were already provided
Get a decision faster
Success Metrics
Average KYB processing time (days)
Cost per verified business case
Document resubmission rate
Digital onboarding completion rate
Compliance officer case throughput
05 - Discovery
How we understood the problem
01
Stakeholder Interviews
Interviewed 6 relationship managers and 4 compliance officers. Mapped their daily workflow, pain points, and the most common reasons for document resubmission.
02
Compliance Workshops
Ran 3 workshops with the legal and compliance team to map every regulatory requirement and identify which checks could be automated vs. required human review.
03
Business Client Interviews
Spoke with 8 business owners who had recently gone through the KYB process. Key theme: the process felt opaque - no visibility into status, no clarity on what was still missing.
04
Process Analytics
Analyzed 6 months of case data: average completion time, most common rejection reasons, and where in the process the highest drop-off occurred.
05
Existing Journey Mapping
Mapped the current end-to-end journey across all touchpoints: branch visit, email chains, internal systems, and registry checks - exposing 11 distinct handoff points.
06
Support Ticket Analysis
Reviewed 3 months of client support contacts related to KYB. 60% of contacts were status check requests - "where are we in the process?"
Quantitative research - completion, drop-off and support-contact data across the KYB journey.
06 - Key Insights
What we learned
Insight
60% of delays came from back-and-forth document requests, not actual review time.
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Why it mattered
The bottleneck wasn't compliance capacity - it was information quality at submission.
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Design implication
Build an intelligent checklist that validates completeness before submission, not after.
Insight
Business owners didn't know what documents were required until they were rejected.
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Why it mattered
Each rejection added 3–5 days to the process and destroyed trust in the bank.
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Design implication
Surface the full document requirement list upfront, tailored to the business type.
Insight
60% of support contacts were status check requests - "where are we in the process?"
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Why it mattered
Uncertainty was creating unnecessary support load and reducing client confidence.
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Design implication
Build a real-time progress tracker so clients never need to call to check status.
07 - Product Strategy
Principles that guided the design
01
Reduce uncertainty at every step
Business owners should always know exactly where they are in the process, what's been accepted, and what's still needed. Ambiguity kills trust in financial products.
02
Prevent mistakes before submission
Validate document types, file formats, and completeness in real time - before the client submits. A 2-second check on upload saves 3 days of back-and-forth.
03
Collect information only once
Never ask the client for data the bank already has. Pre-fill from existing records, state registries, and previous applications wherever possible.
04
Make compliance feel invisible
Regulatory requirements are complex but they don't need to feel complex. Translate legal language into plain, actionable instructions at every touchpoint.
05
Guide users step-by-step, not all at once
Present the process in logical stages rather than showing the full 30-document checklist at once. Progressive disclosure reduces cognitive load and drop-off.
08 - Solution
What we built
Problem
Business owners received a generic document list that didn't account for their specific legal structure - LLC requirements differ from JSC, sole trader, or non-resident entities. This caused systematic over-requesting and under-requesting.
Decision
A dynamic document checklist that adapts to the business type selected at the start of the flow. The system shows only the documents actually required - no more, no less.
WhyA generic checklist treats all businesses the same. A dynamic one reduces document over-requesting by 40% and ensures compliance teams receive complete, structured submissions from the start.
Problem
Clients uploaded incorrect file types, low-resolution scans, and expired documents. These errors weren't caught until a compliance officer reviewed the case - days later - forcing another email cycle.
Decision
Real-time document validation on upload: file type, size, resolution check, and expiry date detection for ID documents. Errors surface instantly with clear instructions to fix them before submission.
WhyCatching errors at upload rather than post-submission eliminated the most common cause of processing delays. A 2-second client-side check replaces a 3-day email cycle.
Problem
After submitting documents, business owners had no visibility into the verification status. They called or emailed the bank daily for updates, creating a secondary workload that consumed relationship manager time.
Decision
A real-time progress tracker showing each verification stage: Submitted → Under Review → Checks Complete → Decision. Status updates are triggered automatically as compliance officers progress the case.
WhyVisibility eliminates anxiety. When clients can see their case moving forward, they stop calling - reducing inbound support contacts by an estimated 60% for KYB-related queries.
08 - Prototype
Try the live prototype
Below is the interactive prototype I built to validate the flow - a working replica of the company data-update journey, from the dashboard prompt through the multi-step questionnaire. Client branding and data are anonymized under NDA.
Inputs, dropdowns, file uploaders, and validation states - all built as reusable Figma components with all interactive states documented.
Tokens
Design Tokens
Color, typography, spacing, and radius tokens aligned with the bank's brand system and mapped directly to dev variables in the codebase.
Patterns
Status States
Consistent visual language for success, error, warning, and pending states across all document upload and validation interactions.
Accessibility
WCAG 2.1 AA
All components meet contrast ratio requirements. Focus states, error announcements, and keyboard navigation tested with screen readers.
The design system was delivered as a Figma component library with documented usage guidelines, allowing future feature teams to extend the product consistently - without a designer in the loop for every new screen.
10 - Results
Business impact
$1.1MEstimated operational cost savings within the first 6 months
70%Reduction in average KYB processing time
3×Faster end-to-end business client onboarding
0Repeated document submissions after launch
11 - Reflection
What I learned
Compliance requirements should reduce risk, not increase complexity. The designer's job is to absorb that complexity so the user never feels it.
Visibility builds confidence during long processes. When people can see progress, they trust the system - even when it's slow.
Early collaboration with legal and compliance teams prevents costly redesigns. The best UX decisions came from workshops, not solo design sessions.
The biggest UX win wasn't a clever interaction - it was preventing errors before they happened. Prevention beats recovery every time.
Product success in regulated industries comes from balancing three competing needs: what the business wants, what compliance requires, and what users can actually do.
