Fintech App Onboarding UX: Designing e-KYC Sign-Ups People Finish

Fintech app onboarding UX is the design of everything a new customer does between installing the app and their first transaction: creating an account, verifying their identity with e-KYC, securing the account and adding funds. It matters because this is where most fintech apps lose the people they paid to acquire. Good onboarding keeps every required check, but makes each step clear enough that people finish it in one go.

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What Fintech Onboarding Includes

Whether the product is a payment wallet, an investment app, lending or insurance, onboarding usually follows the same backbone:

Where People Drop Off

The number of steps matters less than how each step feels. The usual friction points:

• The ID card photo. Glare, blur and cropped edges lead to rejections, often discovered only hours later.
• The selfie or liveness check. People do not know what the app expects, so they retry or give up.
• Long forms with jargon. Investment and insurance terms stop beginners who do not know what to answer.
• Silent waiting. "Your application is being processed" with no time estimate makes people forget the app.
• Asking without explaining. Requests for camera access or a tax number without a reason feel risky.

Design Principles for e-KYC Sign-Ups

1. Explain, then ask. One line on why a document is needed, before the camera opens.
2. Guide the capture live. A frame for the card, automatic capture when it is sharp, and an immediate retake prompt if it is not.
3. Pre-fill, do not retype. Read the data from the ID card and let people confirm or correct it.
4. Show progress. "Step 3 of 5" reduces drop-off more than shortening the form by one field.
5. Separate "browse" from "transact". Let people explore the app while approval runs, so the wait does not feel empty.
6. Write for beginners. Short explanations next to terms like risk profile, without slowing down experienced users.
7. Treat identity data carefully. ID card photos and face data are personal data under UU PDP No. 27/2022. Collect only what is needed and say how it is protected.

What Our Fintech Projects Showed

Bahana Sekuritas: A Faster Registration

Bahana's trading platform, DXTrade, had not had a major update in years while competitors improved their experience, and engagement was slipping among younger investors. We started with user research, then redesigned the experience and UI as a modern multi-asset investment app. Registration became 62% faster, product finding 92% faster, and time to purchase dropped to under 18 seconds, with 8+ new features.

Bahana SekuritasSee the project →

One by IFG: Validated with Users Before Launch

One by IFG combines insurance, mutual funds, bonds and stocks in a single app, and one of its goals was to make investing approachable for beginners. We ran in-depth interviews and usability testing with 15 users before launch. The app reached 75K users in 8 months and a 4.9 app rating.

Mirae Asset Sekuritas: Proof Before Launch

Before launching M-Stock, Mirae wanted proof the customer journey worked. Usability testing with 30 traders, investors and beginners shaped a UI improvement strategy; the app holds a 4.7 rating and 89% of the strategy was implemented.

How to Measure Onboarding

• Completion rate per step, so you know exactly where people stop.
• Time to complete registration, from first screen to submitted application.
• Rejection and resubmission rate for ID and selfie captures.
• Time to first transaction, the moment onboarding actually pays off.

Numbers show where people stop; usability testing with five to fifteen real users shows why.

How to Start

1. Map your current onboarding flow, screen by screen.
2. Pull completion data per step and pick the worst two.
3. Test those steps with a mix of beginners and experienced users.
4. Redesign, prototype and test again before the developers build it.

Planning a new fintech app or fixing an existing sign-up? Talk to us.