As the Product Designer responsible for Open Banking experiences across ClearScore’s marketplace and credit health missions, I redesigned how millions of users understand, connect and maintain their bank accounts on ClearScore.
This work spanned activation, retention, education, and value delivery, resulting in measurable improvement to both loan marketplace outcomes and credit health engagement.
Across both product areas, I owned the end to end UX, collaborated with cross functional teams across three missions, and aligned everything to the new ClearScore design system.
Role
Product Designer
Industry
Finance
Team
Obi Molokwu, PM. Raul Brito, iOS. Florian Emile, Backend. Jessica Opara, Frontend. Codie Westphall, Engr Manager.
Tldr: The problem and solution
Users came to ClearScore looking for better loan offers, but without connecting their bank accounts, they were only seeing a partial view of their financial situation. At the same time, even when users connected once, there was little reason for them to stay connected.
I approached this as a connected problem rather than two separate ones.
Introducing Open Banking at a high-intent moment in the loans journey
Creating ongoing value through personalised bill insights
This resulted in over 20,000 new connections in the first month, a 12.5% improvement in loan offer relevance, and a measurable increase in engagement and re-authentication.
Accounts connection in the first month
Improvement in loan offer accuracy
Engagement with bills insights
Increase in re-authentication rate
Click-through on upcoming bill details
Best delivery award
Phase 1: Contextual Marketplace Integration
Users exploring loans are already in a high-intent state, they are actively trying to improve their financial situation. This made the loans journey the most natural place to introduce Open Banking.
Understanding the users
To validate our hypothesis, I ran a usability study with 8 participants using a high-fidelity Figma prototype on DScout. How users interacted was observed, paying close attention to their confidence levels, hesitations, and overall understanding of why linking their account mattered. Insights were documented from these interviews.
Users understood the value of linking their accounts when it was framed around getting something better.
Most understood they needed to link their accounts every 90 days.
They needed clearer cues about the security and benefits of Open Banking.
How might we design the loans user flow?
After conducting the user research, I started to think about the actions and process the users might take to link their bank accounts within loans. What was the best entry point and way to help the user carry out the action?
Rather than introducing Open Banking as a standalone action, I embedded it directly within the loans questions flow, making it part of the natural progression toward viewing offers. The experience was designed to feel simple, contextual, and trustworthy.
Design explorations
The final design solution
To address the low Open Banking adoption, I introduced a seamless entry point in form of a visually distinct card embedded within the loans questions flow. The card clearly explained the benefit of connecting bank accounts and a clear call-to-action.
On clicking the call-to-action, the users are taken to a page that explains the benefits and how Open Banking works. If they choose to proceed, they are shown their accounts which they can then select and connect through their respective bank.
The feature was deployed across Android, iOS and web platforms to ensure consistent user experience across devices.
It was deployed at first to 50% of the UK user base as an A/B test with a control and test group. The primary metric measured was Open Banking connection rate, with a secondary metric of loans offer improvement rate.
Results and impact
The feature successfully validated the hypothesis, driving meaningful results. From Amplitude data received over the first month of the experiment, the new loans flow drove 20,000+ successful account connections. Users who connected their bank accounts received more tailored loan offers, leading to a 12.5% improvement in offer relevance.
The integration had no negative impact on overall marketplace performance, confirming the solution enhanced the experience without introducing friction.
And we won the best delivery in the marketplace mission for Q3 of 2024! 🚀
Phase 2: Personalized Financial Insights
With strong Open Banking adoption established through the marketplace integration, I identified an opportunity to leverage that data to solve a critical user pain point: understanding and managing bills that impact credit scores. This would create ongoing value that incentivized users to maintain their connections.
In the product, the Upcoming Bills feature featured a prominent section showing bills that are likely to affect the user’s credit score. I prioritised the bills data users would find helpful i.e. the bills provider, the amount and the due date. The bills section was split into two categories:
Bills that may impact credit score: These bills are reported to credit reference agencies (e.g., utilities, car payments, loans).
Bills unlikely to impact credit score: These bills may not have a big impact on credit score because their repayment is not reported to credit reference agencies (e.g., subscriptions)
Understanding the users
To understand the pain points more clearly, 9 semi-structured, moderated interviews were conducted with ClearScore users on Dscout from a variety of backgrounds and financial situations. 4 users also use CreditKarma, 6 use Experian and 1 uses CheckMyFile. This research was essential in understanding pain points surrounding everyday bill management behaviours.
The main question here was, "Do users understand the impact of bills on their credit health?"
Insights from the user interviews
The interviews spanned over a week and getting to talk to the users was significant. The key insights they revealed were:
◆ The initial hypothesis that users paying via Direct Debit (DD) wouldn’t find bill insights valuable was disproven. While DD users may have automatic payments set up, many still struggle with tracking payments due to inconsistent bank reminders.
◆ Many users, especially those with lower credit scores, struggled to track which bills impacted their score. There was significant confusion about whether certain bills, such as Netflix or mobile phone contracts, would affect their credit scores.
◆ Many users relied heavily on reminders, especially for bills not on Direct Debit, such as quarterly payments or variable payments. Some used Apple Calendar or set multiple phone reminders.
What is the product opportunity?
We recognized an opportunity to help users understand and manage their bills more effectively, providing them with the tools to avoid missed payments and, ultimately, improve their credit health.
For Users:
We aimed to create a feature that made it easy for users to stay informed about bills that could impact their credit scores. The goal was to empower users with actionable insights so they could manage their finances more proactively.
For ClearScore:
The aim was to increase OB engagement and help users keep their accounts active. By linking the Upcoming Bills feature to OB data, we could keep users engaged with the platform, giving them personalized financial insights that encouraged long-term use.
The key features designed
The Upcoming Bills feature was designed to give users personalised reminders about bills due in the next 7 days, specifically highlighting those that could affect their credit scores.
There was a strong need for clear communication about which bills directly affected credit scores, and the importance of timely payments
Relink account prompt
Users whose linked accounts were nearing expiration (within 30 days) were prompted with a “Relink” CTA. This encouraged users to reconnect their accounts to maintain seamless access to their financial data.
Video education on credit
Based on user confusion around which bills affect credit scores, educational content was added to clarify the difference between payments that impact credit scores and those that don’t. This video provides context around missed payments.
A/B experiment approach
Before fully launching the Upcoming Bills feature, we tested it with 1% segment of users to validate our hypotheses.
We hypothesized that showing users personalized insights into bills due in the next 7 days would:
Increase OB re-authentication rates
Encourage users to manage bills more effectively
Improve understanding of the bills impacting their credit score
The experiment involved A/B testing different user segments, tracking the primary metric of OB re-authentication and secondary metrics of engagement with the upcoming bills insights.
Results and impact
When we launched the Upcoming Bills feature, we were eager to see how it would resonate with users and whether it would drive the kind of engagement we hoped for. The results not only met but exceeded our expectations, creating a ripple effect across the user experience.
Engagement from the Home Screen
35.8%
Users who clicked on the Upcoming Bills insights card from the ClearScore home screen.
Higher Engagement with Bill Insights
17.3%
The feature also drove 17.3% of users to click through and explore more details about the bills displayed.
Increased OB Re-authentication
8.77%
Users who interacted with the Upcoming Bills insights reconnected their bank accounts.
Contribution to the design system
Following the launch of the new ClearScore app in November 2024, I was also responsible for updating the Open Banking flow to fit the new Slate design system on Figma. I contributed the end-to-end flow and new components for bank accounts for the Open Banking connection.
This work was important for the design consistency in the cross-platform ClearScore product.
This work reinforced that adoption improves when Open Banking is positioned as a clear outcome, rather than a feature users need to understand.
It also highlighted that retention depends on ongoing value. Users are more likely to stay connected when the product continues to provide useful, timely insights.
Even automated systems like Direct Debit don’t remove the need for visibility. People still want to understand what’s happening with their money.
Finally, designing for lifecycle, especially around expiry and reconnection, is just as important as designing the initial experience.