Request Payments

Project Overview

A simplified and clearer solution for CurrencyFair business users to receive international payments from their customers.

Problem

When receiving international payments from customers, our business users were frustrated that our deposit flow required them to provide the bank details of where a deposit was coming from, leading to the awkward scenario of when asking their customer for payment, they also had to ask for their bank details.

Discovery and research

This pain-point business users faced when receiving international payments was a known problem that had regularly been highlighted in surveys and over the phone with our customer support team.

Business goals and requirements

The key driver for the need to resolve this problem was the change in strategy by CurrencyFair to target the SME market more. There were however additional requirements the business wanted us to meet in addition to resolving this issue namely:

• Maintain a similar level of deposits that automatically clear into CurrencyFair accounts;
• Make it clearer to business users that they can receive payments from customers into their CurrencyFair account; and
• Update the deposit flow to the new React UI framework.

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Ideation

The main concern about removing the bank details from a pending deposit was the percentage of deposits that auto-clear would drop significantly. This was based on research that showed a large number of deposits into business accounts did not include the transfer reference number, making the need for additional deposit information more of a requirement in order to clear deposits into user accounts.

Data analysis

To ensure that the clearing rate didn't drop too much, we analysed a sample of previous deposits to see what the clearing rate would have been if the bank account details weren't included. The outcome was:

• No deposit bank details: We found that it dropped a significant amount that would result in more deposits requiring the need to be manually allocated to accounts, or even have to be refunded all together.
• The name of the bank account holder only: The percentage of deposits that would have auto-cleared only dropped by a few percent and was above the percentage identified in the business requirements.

Based on the data analysis, the decision was made that the bank account name would still need to captured in order to maintain a high auto-clearing level.

Prototyping and testing

Version 1

For this version we just simplified the Transfer In flow by removing the requirement for bank details, and only asked for the account holder's name. So that we weren't passing on the same problem we were trying to resolve, if a user didn't know the exact bank account name, they could still continue by inputting something that is likely to be a close match to the bank account name. Given the concerns about the auto-clearing rate, this was flagged as something to monitor when released to a pilot group.

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Version 2

For this version we separated the request payment option into its own flow.

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User testing results

• Both versions tested well, but the results showed that version 2 was clearer and simpler for the user to set up a pending deposit for a customer due to the wording being more specific to the task at hand.
• Version 2 was also more successful at making the business user aware of the ability to receive payments which was a key business goal.

Benefits of a separate flow

• More direct wording and context: The text throughout the flow is more focused as the user determines at the outset if they are setting up a deposit from their own business bank account or receiving a payment from a customer.
• Different functionality: The ability to share depositing bank details via email was an added functionality. While consideration was give to building in a function so that a user could input an email address and CurrencyFair would then send an email to the customer this was not ultimately implemented due to GDPR concerns. The solution designed now opens the user's email client with a pre drafted email that includes all the depositing details. This saves the user time and removes the chance of any errors copying the details. They only need to input their customer's email.
• Flexibility to expand the flow: By having a separate flow to request customer payments this has also laid the foundation for potential future products such as issuing invoices.

Implementation

This feature was released to a pilot group so that the deposit clearing could be monitored. The clearing score remained sufficiently consistent. At that point we gradually rolled it out to entire user base.

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