We also observed key customer behaviours during different app onboarding processes,

which highlighted that using pre-filled data for instant onboarding is preferred by users.

I’m so tired of creating usernames & entering emails repeatedly😫😫

I want to skip the onboarding and start instantly💅🏼

Why can’t these apps use my existing data effectively?😡

Building Trust 💪🏼

Enhancing Convenience 🕗

We decided to focus on the below targets
based on what we learnt from our findings

Project Highlights

Caveat

RBI has barred Fintechs to lend money as loans through non payment instruments like pre-paid cards & money wallets. Fintechs here have no choice but to surrender to bank’s long, cumbersome onboarding process

Why is this a problem

Nowadays people expect instant access. They’re used to quick, one-step logins for everything, be it food delivery, dating, or banking. However, for fintech apps, RBI rules make it harder to keep things that simple.

The problem

Long Onboarding Process

Kiwi's onboarding requires extensive personal, career, and income details, making the form lengthy.

High Drop-off Rate

Due to its length (24 steps) Users often get frustrated and drop off midway through the onboarding process.

A genuine question

But are people comfortable with credit card companies having their personal data?

“Are my personal

details safe?”

“Data leak?”

“What if they 

  spam me?”

Here’s where things get interesting

Amidst fear & threat of data security, the need for convenience remains strong in India

95%

Fear the misuse of their information, and have concerns over their data security

62%

Prefer a convenient onboarding and fairly trust the organisation with their data who lend money

SOURCE : USER SURVEY

Looking at what already exist

24 steps long onboarding process

We dug deeper to find this disconnect

Here are all the data points that are asked during Kiwi’s onboarding process, we further segregated them into

Name

Birthdate

Gender

Mobile number

Postal address

Father’s name

Mothers Name

Marital status

Residence type

Pan card details

Pincode

Nationality

Email ID

Company Name

Tenure

Organisation type

Industry type

Monthly Income

Company Address

Company PIncode

Easily accessible

Moderately accessible

Difficult to access

As designers, we had to choose

Should we optimise the easier, frequently completed fields (marked in green) or tackle the more challenging fields (marked in yellow and red) that often lead to drop-offs.

We recognised that green data points could be auto-filled from government-issued IDs like Aadhar or PAN cards.

This will streamline and reduce the number of steps, allowing users to devote more attention to completing the complex yellow and red fields.

3:27

By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service

The Easiest path to get your Kiwi card

STEP 1

Checking Eligibility

STEP 2

Aadhar Verification

STEP 3

Application form

STEP 4

KYC Verification

Continue

1

First Impression Matters

Made the first screen easier to navigate, with straight forward instructions and clear UX copy.

2

Highlighted key actions

Guiding users with clear, actionable prompts along with relevant tags making the onboarding process feel more user friendly

3:27

How would you like

to proceed?

Fetch my details

for me

Pre-fill your personal details using Aadhar OCR

I’ll fill out the details myself

Manually feed in your personal details

Continue

Fetch my details

for me

Pre-fill your personal details using Aadhar OCR

I’ll fill out the details myself

Manually feed in your personal details

Relevant time tags

3:27

By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service

The Easiest path to get your Kiwi card

STEP 1

Checking Eligibility

STEP 2

Aadhar Verification

STEP 3

Application form

STEP 4

KYC Verification

Continue

3:27

I hereby authorise YES Bank


A. To share my Aadhaar Card details with UIDAI for authentication using OCR.

B. Retrieve and use my details such as Name, DOB, Gender, Address and Photograph for issue of YES Bank Credit Card KYC purpose only.

Scan your Aadhar card

Place your card in the centre of the marked box

Start Verification

Place the front side of your card in the box

1/2

3:27

Place the back side of your card in the box

2/2

3:27

3:27

Aadhar Verified

New OCR flow saving almost 8-10 steps

3:27

Fathers Name

Kumar Singh

Nationality

Indian

Address

House 332, Sector 1, Opposite Apollo Hospital, Gurgaon - 400502

Name

Vijay Kumar Singh

Date of Birth

16-08-1995

Gender

Male

Phone Number

9934 5678 21

Confirm Details

Tap to edit

We fetched your Aadhar card details

I confirm that these details are correct and agree to submit these details to Yes Bank for processing of my Credit Card Application

Continue

4

Offered progress indicators

Provided early gratification for the users, letting them know the exact data points extracted from their Aadhar

Pin Serviceability

Aadhar Verification

Personal Details

New motif exploration for each section

Ownpath Industry Project

Simplifying Kiwi's Onboarding

Experience

Kiwi aims to make credit accessible, by merging UPI with credit card experience. This is a short tale of how we revamped their user onboarding, crafting an engaging experience to welcome new users.

The Team


This was a two-member team project, part of Ownpath's Product Design Fellowship. I collaborated with Arun, under the mentorship of Jojo George

My Role


Responsible for driving initial research, proposing the project, conceptualisation, design, and strategising key modules and feature areas.

Metrics to validate our solution

New User Onboarding 
Old vs New flow

Drop off rates
Old vs New flow

No of users opting for the OCR flow

FUTURE OPPORTUNITY

Combining OCR with Liveness Detection will streamline secure customer onboarding, eliminating the need for Video KYC. 

Social Proof

Impact, Reflections & Learnings

Our redesigned onboarding process reduced upto 30%

of time taken to complete it.

Existing Mental models played a pivotal role in finding solutions,

It helped us to look at

the same problem with

a new lens.

There’s always room

to elevate an existing tech, in our case it was Integrating OCR within the traditional KYC process.

This project validated that fostering empathy & building trust eases user doubts and supports adoption of new processes.

Before introducing OCR

After introducing OCR

This allows users to simply scan their Aadhar card, enabling automatic extraction of key details in real-time.

To optimise the onboarding process, we propose introducing OCR technology in the flow. 

Our Breakthrough

We did a comp study to verify whether all the other fintech apps also face the same problem.

Unlike other apps that streamline the loan experience, Kiwi's additional steps make borrowing money feel like a serious and daunting process

Average no of steps required

for onboarding

8-10 steps

10 mins 

Average time required

for onboarding

INDUSTRY STANDARDS (Slice, OneCard & UniCard)

Reach out to me — or let’s just grab a coffee! ☕

sentosoham@gmail.com