Fifth Third Bank: Enabling Payment Method Changes Post-Transaction
Overview
Have you ever made a transaction, only to realize later that you should have used another account to earn more rewards or to avoid overdrafts?
Fifth Third (5/3) is one of the largest consumer banks in the Midwestern United States with over 11 million customers. Together, we discovered ways for customers to change payment methods post-transaction in Fifth Third’s mobile app.
Context
Client project: discovery & concept
Timeline: 50 hours (Jan - May 2023)
Team: 6 designers
My role
Research Synthesis
Design Lead
Usability Testing
GOAL
Create a user flow that helps 5/3 customers view pending charges and switch them between payment methods
- from 5/3 Bank Design Team
THE PROBLEM
How might we empower users to have greater control over their accounts and rewards through the ability to reassign transactions?
SOLUTION
Users can either reassign pending transactions independently or after getting alerts
Now that you’re acquainted, let’s dive a bit deeper.
INITIAL RESEARCH
When transactions are in the 'pending' period, merchants have the most direct control
According to the 5/3 Bank team, within their bank, ". . . all transactions show up as ‘pending’ for a period of time. Seemingly, this suggests a user should be able to ‘switch’ a transaction to a different payment method before the transaction is fully complete (1-2 days later)."
We decided to research how money moves and learned that transactions are typically waiting for merchants to process them, hence the 'pending' period. Banks and card issuers have less control over the transaction during this time.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
No bank offers a feature similar to reassigning transaction
After conducting research on other banks, we discovered that none of them offer a "reassigning transaction" feature. The only platform we found with a similar feature is Amazon, which allows changing payment methods for orders that haven't been shipped yet.
Amazon's guide to change payment method
USER INTERVIEWS
We focused on three main pillars for research:
Management
How do customers manage their accounts? Is there any strategy or system in place?
Errors
How often do customers use the wrong card and what is the solution?
Value
Do customers see any value in this feature? How would it affect their choice of bank?
Affinity mapping for interviews with small business owners and general population
KEY FINDINGS
Customers rarely misuse accounts, and when they do, it's not a major issue
System in place
Customers already feel comfortable and secure with their current management system.
Errors are rare
Using the wrong card or account to pay is not a common problem for customers.
All this boils down to...
Customers found little value in reassigning transaction
All of the participants were hesitant about the feature, and thought that it would work for someone else but themselves:
"I could see the benefit, but I don't know that I would use it much, at least not at this point in my life.”
SHOULD WE CONTINUE?
Pivot! Pivot! Pivot!
Based on our findings, we were unsure how to proceed. All participants were not interested and suggested that “someone else” would benefit from it more than themselves.
We discussed this with Fifth Third and our stakeholders wanted to "focus on what could be, instead of should be", with an emphasis on discovering a 'nice-to-have' feature. The team noticed that our participants showed interest in having an automated system or notifications to help with occasional oversights, so we decided to explore the possibility.
USER'S GOALS
Customers want to maximize rewards and avoid disruptions
Based on our user research and using the Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) approach, the team tried to answer: if 5/3 Bank customers ever want to reassign a transaction then when and why would that be?
Maximize rewards
Customers forget to bring the preferred card or change the payment method for automatic charges, which are small mistakes but annoying. They wish to maximize earnings from purchases once they realize another method offers better rewards or cashback.
“I forgot to change my preferred card, so that took like a couple months to like catch all of those.”
Avoid disruptions
Customers struggle with their cash flow and have to transfer funds between accounts if mistakes happen. They want to know about transactions that may result in overdrafts or when nearing credit due dates so they can take necessary actions.
“I was running low at the end of the month, and I wished I would have put it on my credit card.”
IDEATION
Making the feature readily accessible
We examined the app to determine the optimal placement, and how customers can easily access the feature.
Where to place the feature?
When to send the alert?
USABILITY TESTING & ITERATION 1
The nested buttons were confusing, so we simplified the alert flows
The intention was to let customers view and reassign transactions from both Home and the Account Transactions page.
From our usability testing result, the button confused participants: only 3 out of 5 could complete both tasks.
100%
Task completion rate
We eliminated one flow, so when getting an alert, user can only reassign from the Account Transactions page.
ITERATION 2
Ensuring UI consistency with the 5/3 Bank app
The initial high-fidelity design seemed out of place in the 5/3 Bank mobile app. For the second iteration, we focused on aligning UI elements based on the "Send Money with Zelle" flow to achieve visual and behavioral consistency
FINAL DESIGN
Users proactively reassign
Under the Move Money tab, users can reassign one or multiple transactions if they discover any mistakes without relying on a notification.
Users get an alert about their transaction
The Fifth Third system notifies if their spending might cause overdrafts. Users have the option to reassign the transaction in order to avoid any disruptions.
KEY LEARNINGS
What I would do differently?
Be willing to discard ideas that are not working, even if you've invested in them
While this project was a valuable learning experience for me and my team, I wish we had been more discerning in deciding whether to proceed with the idea. Given more time, we would have communicated more with Fifth Third Bank to explore different options
Uncover and solve more edge cases
As I revisited the project and wrote this case study, I realized there were edge cases that we missed. In the future, considering different flows and use cases could improve my ability to identify these overlooked edge cases and thus, designing better experiences.
