Pitching a new digital banking platform for JPMorganChase that received $25M in funding
2023
1 product manager
3 designers
1 researcher
5 developers
Experience
user research
product design + implementation
product strategy
In March 2023, Silicon Valley Bank entered bankruptcy, the second-largest US bank ever to do so. Following the collapse, almost 50% of SVB-impacted companies, mostly startups, opened accounts and moved their funds to us- America’s largest bank. This presented an enormous opportunity for our team because we were already designing for a new banking experience for startups. Now, we had more reason than ever to supersize this project— all we needed to do was to pitch it.
What’s wrong with our existing Chase platform and what’s right about our competitors’ approach
Together with Tiffany who led research, we built the case that our platform would offer value currently missing from Chase Connect, JPMorgan’s existing middle market banking experience.
To do so, we performed a heuristic audit on Chase Connect currently across ten heuristic principles.
We also mapped competitors’ information architecture to build a case for simplifying what’s in Chase Connect. This alongside our heuristic evaluation shaped our proposal for a simplified accounts, payments, and reporting architecture.
I proposed a simplified information architecture that aligned with our competitors
On the left was the existing information architecture. On the right was our proposal.
Reducing entry points allows clients to add features modularly as they grew.
Focusing on clarity in our navigation tailors the experience for startups and non-native bank users. Finally, new groupings helps users limit additional steps or recall from the their end.
Speedrunning design and implementation
Finally, the design team collaborated with product and development teams to create a live demo with working code. In our demo, Faith could fulfill all of her core banking capabilities.
I was responsible for delivering Faith’s happy path to make a payment, as well as a few other features.
There were several other designs that were a part of the delivery, such as dialogs to review the payment and the payment receipt.
We also delivered a proposal for uploading and auto-populating an invoice, a common feature across competitors.
Outcomes and learnings
We received $25M in funding for our proposal across three years, adding an expansion and three years’ worth of business for our team.
This was my first big project at the firm and it taught me early to be okay with imperfection when prioritizing MVP features. Our goal was to ship the idea and inspire our stakeholders— they could fill in the rest for now. It also taught me to work with developers early to minimize rework for later. The sooner we could iterate on UI feedback, the better our end stage would be.
I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a mover and a shaker on one of my earliest projects. Tune into more case studies to see how the our product grew. 📈