Isa Fabella
UX Designer
Redesigning payment flows to scale
First Circle · 2025
Context
In 2024, First Circle launched Business Banking for SMEs, with payments as a core day-to-day capability. Our platform supported multiple transfer methods, each designed as a separate flow to meet different operational needs.
As adoption grew, payments became a high-frequency workflow used by businesses with varying levels of financial and operational maturity. Clarity, speed, and predictability were essential to making payments usable at scale.
Problem
Routine payment transfers required multiple setup decisions before users could take meaningful action. Though functionally correct, the visual design added unnecessary interaction cost through heavy layouts and extra clicks, slowing users down without increasing clarity or control.
As the foundational flow for all payment capabilities, these patterns created not just usability friction but structural risk. Rigid structures made it harder to scale payments without compounding complexity or introducing long-term design debt.
Approach
I audited existing payment flows to understand where UI decisions were overstating complexity. I relied on my product thinking, insights from session recordings, and internal testing to narrow down the gaps we needed to address.
I refined the visual language across payment screens, keeping layouts light and restrained so the experience felt fast, consistent, and easy to move through.
Solution
I audited existing payment flows to identify where design decisions were adding unnecessary complexity to an otherwise straightforward task. Using insights from session recordings and internal testing, I focused on gaps that slowed users down without meaningfully improving clarity or control.
Before: Transfer method selection lived on its own page
After: Transfer method is selected directly from the primary action
I then refined the visual language across payment screens, keeping layouts light and restrained to reduce interaction cost and create a flow that felt fast, consistent, and easy to move through.
Before: All of the page information was fighting for attention
After: Transfer amount and date are front and center
After: Playing up the visual design to amplify delightful moments
Impact
After we rolled out the redesigned transfer flows, the product achieved net-positive retention among several hundred active payment users, with an increase in week on week payment volume.
Internally, the standardized structure has enabled faster iteration on new payment capabilities. Growth in adjacent financial activity has placed additional operational demands on payments, which the redesigned experience has been able to meet for our customers.