Digital account opening
Building a full digital account origination solution for US Credit Unions
Company
Project category
Banking
Context
Clutch had historically focused on a lending origination white label product for U.S credit unions. In early 2023, a combination of market and customer factors created a time sensitive opportunity to expand the platform to support deposit account origination as well.
About my role:
I was responsible for leading all the design efforts to help Clutch develop a full product in time to become the new provider for this customer, but also be future-proof and scalable for the needs of any other Credit Unions that would also benefit from the solution
Account selection
The experience shows the main account types, describes how they work, what are the account features available and highlights the main information to make the choice easier for the applicant
Until the very end of the journey, we allow applicants to edit their application, adding or removing accounts and changing their initial funding amount. Providing control and creating an almost ”shopping cart” like experience
Fraud Prevention
To prevent fraud, the flow brings the most relevant information before the final review and even before running a third party fraud check system. This reduce cost and also user frustration
The last door for fraud verification is a step-up authentication, when we ask the applicant their selfie and ID to make sure we are opening accounts only to well-intentioned users
This ensures we are not adding unnecessary friction to the user but also not increasing staff work with more manual reviews
review / setup
Before submitting an application the user has the opportunity to review all the main information provided through the process
This step provides clear sections for applicant information, account details and terms and conditions
On this step the applicant can define funding amounts, add co-applicants and select their funding method
impact
At the end of the year, we were able to deliver a replacement for the existing account origination software that improved the final user and staff experiences, and brought a lot of value to our customers. Here are some figures that illustrate this:
Credit Unions live with the product
Total funding in 2025
Approved applications
Auto approved applications
Staff portal
So the experience can be truly omnichannel, the staff portal allows Credit Union employees to open new accounts and also track progress for ongoing applications in one place
To design this product was a big challenge, balance unified experiences with specific use cases was hard but paid off when we see the results
This is just a short version of the process, results and impact. If you want to know more about this project, get in touch and we can talk ;D