Fraud Handling Concept Evaluation

1.Overview & Background

When the customer starts to do most of the banking activities online, ensuring a seamless and efficient userflow is essential for maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty. An important factor that can greatly influence user experience is the effectiveness of a bank's measures in detecting and preventing fraudulent activities.

This Qualitative research project will assess the effectiveness of fraud detection and prevention strategies in TD online banking application to pinpoint opportunities for platform enhancement and better customer experience.

My role: Design Research intern

Duration: 1 month

Team: 2 Senior UX researchers and Web Design team

Tools Used: Figjam, Webex meeting, Powerpoint Deck

2. Empathize

As everything is becoming digital, will the traditional banking processes at a physical branch be replaced by technology? When Customers have been used to open their banking accounts in-person with banking advisors for a long time, what are the chanllenges to a successful transformation?

One pain point is that we have no idea if customers have strong online security awareness and if they are satisfied with the current TD 2FA verification method.

Another pain point is that we do not have sufficent understanding of the customer’s personal information when they are applying for banking accounts online. For example, would customers be comfortable with sharing those personal identity documents online?

3. Research methods

  • User Interviews: I was responsible for Note-taking and Script transcribing for 15 rounds of 1-hour interview for both Canadian and US banking prototypes.(Users are all Non-TD Customers). During the interview, participants were expected to think out loud based on the usability questions in the application flow.

  • Card Sorting: We recorded extensive qualitative data on Figjam from each step of the user flow and categorized all data based on the customer journey map and recurring themes.

  • User Persona: Based on several rounds of data card sorting and affinity diagramming, we constructed different user personas in order to facilitate customer understanding and research process.

4. Findings

  • The online application process is simple and easy to use for participants, no complaints about application flow are documented.

  • Users are generally Satified with the Security features including the 2FA Verification through text messages or Email when verifying ID and checking application progress.

  • For ID verification, most users are comfortable with sharing driving license but hesitant to share SIN especially when being asked if they would apply for credit card online.

  • We found three different user personas based on how they perceive the security in banking: the Tech Savvy millennial, Cautious Senior, and Busy Professionals.

Findings for Online user flow and security measures:

  • For Tech-Savvy Millennials and Busy Professionals, opinions towards applying accounts online are mixed

  • Most senior participants are reluctant to apply banking accounts online when asked if they are willing to apply again in the future.

Here are two Quotes from Tech Savvy millennials and Busy Professionals:

“ This saves me so much time in making reservations with advisors and I am fine with the processing time since the application is not in-person.”

“ I think I can get my accout opened and receive my debit card right after the application process, and why should I wait for 3 more Business days?”

Here is a Quote from a Cautious Senior:

“Face-to-Face communication with an advisor makes me more assured and I can just ask questions when needed.”

Findings Summary for Personas:

5. Discussions and Summary

Based on the previous competitive analysis on the security measures for other Finanical Institiutes across Canada and US, TD follows a similiar approach by using 2FA by text messages or email and all participants are 100% satisfied with having those approachs during their online applications of banking accounts for safety and privacy.

Participants were able notice that there were two 2FA verifications through SMS during the ID upload stage and checking approval decision stage(after the 3-day wait). When a decision is made from TD, the offical email from TD does not state the result from the email subject, and the customer is expected to go through the 2FA again before logging in to the applicant portal to see the result.

However, there are some insights worth mentioning for further research and decision making:

  • This research is only restricted to applying debit card online, should the current 2FA work for other finacial activites, such as trading or mortgage?

  • The in-person application should not be replaced by online application as most customers hold mixed views towards the online application.

  • Better Back-end processing is needed to ensure efficiency since the current system still requires a 3-business day period prior to approval. Also, customer might still need to chose between branch pick-up and mailing, leading to even more extra time spent.

  • Credit card application is much more different and complicated from applying debit cards, what are other ways of verifying credit-relevant personal information online?

Business Impacts:

Based on the insights above, it is important for the Finacial insititution to tailor different security measures to different finacial products while conducting high-quality user research.

Robust secuity measures for different financial activities are needed to protect the financial wellbeing of the customer, which is essential for enchancing the quality of service and customer satisification.