At Oyster, I designed the card management interface within the app and the physical debit card itself contributing during the planning, manufacturing, testing, and releasing phases. This launch helped us double our customer acquisition rate within the first two months.
Problem Statement
Business owners and sole traders' challenges with traditional banking solutions:
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Obtaining a debit card was a cumbersome process, often taking weeks and visits to the branch.
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Additional cards linked to the same account lacked controls, limiting the ability to delegate while maintaining oversight. Owners often resorted to sharing a single card with employees, risking financial mismanagement or creating delays in operational payments.
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Managing online expenses, such as subscriptions and bills, was difficult, with costs quickly spiralling out of control.
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Controlling security features such as card details, disabling the card, changing the PIN or raising a dispute was often a process requiring calls, visits to the branch or to an ATM.
Process
To address these challenges, we took a user-centric approach:
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Research: Conducted interviews and gathered feedback from business owners to understand their pain points and expectations.
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Ideation: Explored solutions that would enable flexibility, security, and simplicity in card management.
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Design: Created prototypes for features like multiple card management, individual controls, and seamless card ordering.
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Testing: Iterated on the cards design, considering diverse edge cases linked to security aspects of the usage of multiple cards.
Solution
The final design introduced:
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Multiple Digital Cards: Business owners could create and manage multiple digital cards with controls like spending limits, MCC restrictions, and temporary blocking or deletion.
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Streamlined Card Ordering: Users could order a physical card directly through the app and activate it instantly upon arrival.
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Intuitive Management Interface: Designed immersive transitions and a user-friendly interface to simplify complex card management tasks.
Outcome
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Oyster's customer acquisition doubled within two months of the launch. We delivered nearly half a million cards within the first two weeks.
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Oyster gained popularity as the only option giving flexibility and control over expenses, improving our acquisition rates.
The introduction of the Oyster card also offered a competitive edge by addressing critical limitations of traditional bank cards. One standout feature was the ability to archive a card to prevent further charges. This was particularly valuable for freelancers who often used their own cards for client projects but forgot to remove them after handover, leading to unexpected bills. During the discovery phase, we uncovered that these hidden charges frequently eroded significant revenue and caused preventable refund claims, highlighting the need for this feature.
Learnings
This project was achieved thanks to the thorough iterative testing to refine complex workflows. We made it possible collaborating directly with our card partners, our engineers, and our leadership. One of the most memorable stories about this experience was one late night when we gathered to add a card to two of our accounts from the backend which made our first transaction possible.