Industry First - Deposit Cheques Digitally in Pakistan
Banking
Digital Cheque Deposit - Reduced Customer Traffic at Branches
Pakistan’s first app-based cheque deposit journey, now handling more than 4,000 cheques a month.
[Project Overview]
As the digital department in a bank the size of UBL, the one problem you always focus on is how to stop people going to branches, and bring them onto digital for all their needs. The largest reason people still go to branches is to deposit their cheques. I designed a digital cheque deposit feature for the UBL Digital app, so that people could deposit their cheques from their app, without going to the branch.
[Problem Statement]
There are more than 250,000 cheques deposited at UBL branches every month. About 40% of these customers have digital banking on their phones. As the industry leader in research and innovation, UBL wanted to explore the concept of depositing your cheque digitally by scanning and uploading images, instead of physically submitting it at the branch. Faced with this complex task, I designed an end to end digital cheque deposit experience for a UBL customer.
[Industry]
Banking
[My Role]
Lead Designer
[Timeline]
October 2022 - March 2023
[Persona]
Saleem Tunio
Small Business Owner
My payments are based on cheques only because my vendors and clients insist on getting paid via that medium.
Age: 55
Location: Sukkur, Pakistan
Tech Proficiency: Low
Gender: Male
[Goal]
He wants to expand his business
He wants to get familiar with digital banking
He wants to avoid visiting the branch to deposit cheques.
[Frustrations]
Vendors insist payments via cheques or in the form of cash
Dependent on his son for electronic funds transfers
Record-keeping is mostly via WhatsApp
[Process]
[01] User Research
Conducted focused user interviews with 5-6 participants that use cheques a lot.
Mapped out the as-is process for cheque deposits and interviewed the staff involved
Studied existing global examples of digital cheque deposit to understand the experience
[02] Insights
Customers often prefer cheques due to not having trust on digital banking
Business owners require stamped cheques for manual record keeping purposes
Most people in Pakistan prefer cash. Due to low limits of withdrawal on ATMS, people withdraw larger amounts via cheque.
[03 Design Solution]
Created a detailed tutorial on how to scan a cheque via the app + tooltips
Created a simple flow with basic inputs such as date, amount, and scanning the front and back of the cheque.
Redesigned the cheque leaf to include a prompt to inform people that they can deposit these cheques digitally
[04] Testing & Iteration
Conducted a detailed retrospective over the next 6 months on approval rate of digital cheques and number of deposits.
Continuously improved on the design and process based on staff and customer feedback.
Performed a detailed analysis of the customers depositing cheques at branches to figure out how to incentivize them to deposit cheques digitally.
[Outcome]
Pakistan’s first way to deposit a cheque from a banking app
More than 4,000 cheques deposited through the app each month
Approval rates rose from 10–15% to 40–50% after six months of testing
[Key Learnings]
Sometimes you're ready but the market isn't
Projects tends to not perform how they are intended because the industry isn't ready to taken on such a radical change.
Retrospectives are vital
Closely monitoring product progress after launch gives you important information that you can leverage for success.
Don't assume you know the customer
Conduct detailed user research to find out whether users would actually use your product.