Online banking for business customers

Service "Risks"

In Russia, Law 115-FZ mandates that banks block their clients’ access to their accounts if suspicious transactions are detected. This law aims to combat shell companies, money laundering schemes, and tax evasion.

However, honest clients may be blocked due to a lack of knowledge or inexperience with this law. For example, withdrawing a large amount of cash and paying a contractor without a formal document might appear suspicious and trigger a block. Such actions, though legitimate, can be misinterpreted as part of a money laundering scheme. Blocking an honest client represents both a financial and reputational loss for a bank. This has created a need for a service that helps clients avoid unnecessary account blocks and conduct their transactions smoothly.

In simple terms:

• The government wants all organizations to pay their taxes and fees, requiring banks to block suspicious or dishonest clients.

• On the other hand, banks aim to keep their customers for as long as possible but don’t want to risk losing their licenses for not complying with Law 115-FZ.

Research

First, we thoroughly studied Law 115-FZ and the automatic algorithm used by our compliance service to understand how the law and the bank identify suspicious customers.

Next, we analyzed blocking data to identify patterns. We found that since the introduction of Law 115-FZ, 82% of clients flagged as high risk were categorized within the first six months of their activity, and 35% of these clients were subsequently blocked. Most of these clients were small businesses with up to 10 employees, whose founder was an online bank user.

This chart presents the number of customers from the danger zone (green columns) by month.

From this data, we established our initial success metric. We aimed to reduce the number of high-risk clients by a factor of five, as compliance teams reported that only one in five flagged clients had a genuine suspicion warranting manual review. While we could not precisely determine how much the number of blocked clients should decrease from the risk zone if only dishonest clients are flagged, we estimated that there should be a threefold reduction.

We created an online banking map for businesses to understand how to interact with clients regarding Law 115-FZ. We also reviewed other similar services. At the time of my design work, only Modulbank, with its "Honest Business" initiative, had a comparable service.

A map of services within our online bank. It helped determine the best way to implement the new feature.

Initial Hypotheses

I made some initial assumptions about what the ideal service should be: it should educate the customer, warn them of potentially risky transactions, provide information about their risk level, alert them if something is going wrong, and allow them to quickly prove their integrity by submitting necessary documents or answering questions.

The first hypotheses were developed to address the following questions: Does the client understand their risk level? Does the client recognize when they are initiating a potentially risky payment? Does the client know the minimum tax required to remain in the safe zone? Does the client know how to respond to the bank if suspicion arises?

First sketches of the future service.

Requirements for research session participants were established. I sought small business owners and representatives from larger companies, where the primary online bank user is an accountant or financial director. Although large businesses are only blocked 2% of the time when in the risk zone, they are still valuable to the bank due to their higher turnover and the greater financial impact of their losses.

Some of the widgets from the first layouts.

The process was divided into two stages: first, the researcher presented a prototype, and after usability testing, she asked questions about 115-FL according to a plan we developed together. One key insight from the testing was that users recognized the risk of being blocked but wanted a clearer understanding of how this risk was calculated rather than just seeing recommendations for mitigation. Similar feedback was given regarding the widgets on the payments page. Users saw a warning about high withdrawal rates and questioned, "What specific value did I withdraw?"

Based on this feedback, we decided to refine the solution by showing detailed calculations and the rules used for those calculations. Instead of the banner on the main page linking to a general information page, it now leads to a dedicated indicator page with more comprehensive information. This change proved successful—hits in the red zone decreased by a factor of eight, and the percentage of blocks from the red zone dropped from 35% to 4%. The bank executives were pleased with the service, which they began promoting as a competitive advantage. The bank’s vice president even shared it on Facebook.

Final design

Surveys were introduced to identify the reasons why a client might be at risk. Additionally, a list of counterparties with their ratings was added to help determine which ones are reliable to work with.

Some of the first layouts.

The tests revealed that the linear form version performed better than the other options. During the tests, clients clearly articulated their actions while filling out the form fields, indicating they understood what they were doing. In contrast, the version with a table and input grid lacked this clarity.

Final design

New loyalty program information map.

Next, we established priorities for testing. We began with the loyalty program’s main page and then tested the prototype, which included the profile, invoice, card, and tax analytics pages.

A few layouts from the prototype.

After reviewing the solutions, we decided to simplify many screens, retaining only the most essential features. Some decisions were also deferred because the teams responsible for accounts and taxes lacked the resources to fully implement our plans at that time.

Final design