Case Study: Current Direct Deposit
Direct deposit is the lifeblood of fintech primacy, but our users were being left in the dark during the crucial waiting period. Like many fintech platforms, growth at Current relies on users setting up direct deposit to unlock premium benefits. Optimizing this journey was essential to driving both conversion and long-term retention.
To fix this, I led design for the overhaul of our direct deposit setup and tracking experience. We created a clear feedback loop to reduce user anxiety, decrease duplicate setup attempts, and transparently connect payroll deposits to benefits those deposits unlocked.
The problem
A black box experience
Our direct deposit flow lacked post-setup feedback, leaving users in the dark until their first paycheck arrived. This lack of guidance caused three major pain points:
- High drop-off & switch duplication: Only ~50% of switches converted to a deposit within 35 days. Through cs inbound and public comms, we knew users were confused by the lack of visibility. This resulted in users often resubmitting, resulting in ~30% of switches as pure duplicates.
- Support burden: Payroll status was our number one inbound support category. Users were tracking their deposits down to the minute and venting on platforms like Reddit when they were delayed.
- Benefits confusion: Users who successfully set up their direct deposit were confused about how it impacted their eligibility for features like Paycheck Advance or Fee-Free Overdraft. Some would receive a deposit but fail to unlock benefits (due to minimum deposit rules) and could not understand why.
Strategy
The game plan
To solve this, we hypothesized that increasing transparency around setup status, deposit timing, and feature eligibility would significantly improve the user experience. Our core objectives were to:
- Acknowledge the switch: Provide immediate visual confirmation when a switch is processing.
- Clarify benefit unlocking: Make it explicit that benefits unlock after the direct deposit lands, not just when the switch is submitted.
- Predict deposit timing: Give users an estimate of when to expect their next paycheck.
User research
Rapid prototyping
We conducted usability testing to validate our initial assumptions.
- Timeline expectations: We discovered users explicitly expected a timeline or progress bar when returning to the DD flow to check their status.
- Set up history: Users (and senior stakeholders) were confused by the set up history vs active payroll tracking. Since we didn't have attribution to connect a switch attempt with a landed deposit, the end-to-end flow was less useful, and a generic pending message made the most sense to cover all bases and provide clarity to the user.
Design
The solution
Phase 1: Acknowledgment & benefit clarity
- Status Alert Cards: Added dynamic alert cards at the top of the screen to acknowledge successful switches, surfacing them for 35 days or until a payroll landed.
- Payroll History: Introduced a new payroll detail card showing the last deposit received date and a 90-day payroll history.
- Benefits Hub Integration: Designed a unified payroll benefits module displaying active/inactive states (Eligible, Ineligible, Unavailable) for features like Paycheck Advance, Overdraft, and Savings Boost. The intention here was for each feature to handle ineligble states and set expections within each module, with direct deposit acting as an overview of status.
Phase 2: Predictive tracking & delay alerts
- Expected Dates: Added the "next expected deposit date" to the payroll details for users with regular periodicity.
- Contextual Delays: Designed contextual alert cards (yellow for delayed, red for missed) to proactively inform users if their deposit was delayed, heading off support tickets.
Outcome
What did we achieve?
60% reduction in duplicate switches
Between variant and control, duplicate switches were down to 2k per week from 6-7k prior to experience launch
3% payroll conversion lift
A less than ideal result, but an improvement nonetheless and a sign we were headed in the right direction.
Credits
Product Design
Dan Wood
Product Management
Maggie Newcomer, Phil Shipley
Engineering
Sergiy Momot, Ramit Suri, Mingming Lang, Jayson Isaac
Data
Bella Ishmaeva