Digital Account Opening
Digitizing the paper-based account opening process for corporate clients.
Overview
Corporate account opening at one of Central Europe's largest banking groups was still driven by paper forms, in-branch visits, and manual identity verification. The goal was to reimagine this flow as a fully digital, self-service experience, reducing friction for business clients while meeting strict regulatory requirements.
Problem
Opening a business account required up to 15 separate documents, multiple branch visits, and weeks of back-and-forth between clients and relationship managers. Drop-off rates were high, especially among smaller businesses who found the process disproportionately complex. Internally, manual data entry led to frequent errors and compliance bottlenecks that slowed processing times further.
Process
We focused on two client segments - sole traders and SMEs . Workshops with advisors and customer support team revealed internal pain points that were invisible to clients - particularly around KYC and contract signing. We ran multiple rounds of concept testing, progressively validating the information architecture, form logic, and document upload flows with real business owners.
Challenges
Drop-Offs and Not-so-happy Path: A unique challenge in corporate digital onboarding was the wide variety of drop-off scenarios - such as company ineligibility, PEP (Politically Exposed Person) status among beneficial owners, or involvement in restricted or illegal business activities. In some cases, legal constraints prevented us from disclosing the exact reason in the UI, requiring me to design elegant fallback patterns that maintained user trust, minimised frustration, and guided users toward the appropriate next steps. Achieving a fully digital onboarding experience required close collaboration with legal, compliance, and security teams to advocate for critical UX enablers such as remote identity verification and on-screen presentation of sensitive data. I collaborated closely with Legal, Compliance, Engineering, Design System teams and UX Research Lead to co-create a digital onboarding experience that balanced regulatory requirements, usability, and scalability. This cross-functional collaboration accelerated validation and enabled delivery under intense time constraints.
Landing Page
Before the official product launch, I designed the concept for the landing page, showcasing the product's key value propositions and the seamless onboarding experience. I collaborated closely with the bank's development team to bring the concept to life.
Solution
The redesigned flow guides corporate clients through a step-by-step digital application with intelligent form logic that adapts to business type and jurisdiction. Company information gets imported from the commercial register, reducing manual input. A real-time status tracker keeps clients informed at every stage, while relationship managers get a unified dashboard to review, approve, and communicate without leaving the platform.
Results
The digital onboarding flow launched as part of the bank's business banking platform George Business, significantly reducing average onboarding time and cutting manual processing effort. Client satisfaction scores improved across all segments, and the compliance team reported fewer data quality issues thanks to built-in validation and automated document verification.