International money transfer
Bottlenecks & Solutions
Client
ABN AMRO
Year
2021
Tools
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Illustrator
Project type
Personal project with Lo-Fi solutions
Project Description
Research the ABN AMRO money transfer screen and locate the current bottlenecks in international transfers to non-SEPA countries. In addition, how this could be redesigned (Lo-Fi) and optimized for business account holders.
Introduction
When a friend of mine started his own company in 2021, he had a business partner in China. At one point, she needed an advance to invest in certain products—a sum of 30,000 Chinese Yuan Renminbis. My friend is with ABN AMRO and thought she could quickly transfer this amount to her business partner, but she found that transferring money to a non-SEPA country was much more complicated. When she told me about his experience, I immediately got inspired to see where the bottlenecks were in the current design and how I could optimize it for the users.
The Challenge
How can international transfers to non-SEPA countries be optimized for business account holders?
Bottleneck #1
The 2021 interface of business account holders are identical to that of private account holders (see the above image). This allowed me to investigate this flow. When I select that I want to transfer money to China, a notification with important information appears at the top of the screen. It also contains a link to a document with all the instructions. I immediately think;
"Why do I need to open a 2nd tab to read these important instructions?"
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When I click on the link, a PDF file appears with the instructions. However, I also immediately see that this is a document from 2018. So not soon after that, I wondered -"Is this information still up-to-date?" - I would want to contact the bank right now to verify this before proceeding with my money transfer. It would therefore be an extra effort for me as a user to reach my goal.
Solution
The country information document provides essential and detailed information. So do not let the user search for this information because that result in additional actions. So my solution would be to show this information, filtered, in the relevant field. In addition, there will still be a way to see the full document if needed.
Bottleneck #2
Going back to the scenario, my friend wants to transfer money to her business partner in China. Mr Ching (not his real name) needs an advance of 30,000 Chinese Yuan Renminbis. When I asked her how many euros it was, she couldn't tell me that immediately. This needed to be looked up through a different website. This also got me thinking- if a bank is a finance expert, why isn't it immediately apparent to the user how much money they are transferring in a different currency?
Solution
When I make an international transfer as a starting entrepreneur, I want to know how much I am transferring to ensure it is sufficient. To obtain this information, I got the idea of showing a real-time currency rate that shows the current position. In addition, I would also make it possible to select other currencies as well. However, this element should not be distracting, which is why it is initially transparent, with a mouse-over causing the transparency to disappear and the button selectable.
Bottleneck #3
After my friend transferred the desired advance successfully, this was converted into a monthly (periodic) payment. However, users can no longer add a payment reference when selecting the 'periodic' selection.
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At the time, my friend said she could be sloppy with her administration, which would eventually pile up. I thought to myself:
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"As an entrepreneur, I want to keep a clear overview of my administration at all times. In addition, keeping this information separate from my other invoices."
Solution
I then came up with the idea of implementing a logbook function where the user, for example, in the case of a periodic transfer, can document their transactions within a separate folder. This way, all transactions are kept together and preserve a clear overview
