New accounts open successfully
Rakbank
Redesigning RAKBANK’s digital onboarding experience to create a smoother, more accessible, and user-friendly journey for new customers.
Role
Principal Designer. Overseeing design strategy and leading a team of three designers across RAKBANK’s Business Banking division.
Team
CD, POs, PMs, BAs, Front-End & Back-End Engineers + 3 more designers.
Deliverables
Product strategy alignment, roadmaps, user journeys and system flows, cross-functional alignment, conceptual prototypes and experience validation.
Location
Remote from Italy, with occasional travel to Dubai (UAE).
Keywords
Financial Services, Business Banking, Digital Banking, Middle East.
Insight
From legacy to scalable experience
As the UAE accelerates its economic diversification and digital transformation, financial products are expected to scale seamlessly alongside a fast-growing, increasingly complex customer base. For RAKBANK—one of the country’s oldest financial institutions—this moment represented more than a visual refresh. It was an opportunity to rethink onboarding as a core product capability: one that could reduce operational friction, support new customer segments, and serve as a foundation for future growth.
The challenge
Rethinking Rakbank Business onboarding process and building a paperless and scalable multi-partner application from scratch
As part of RAKBANK’s broader digital modernization initiative, my first project focused on reimagining core customer journeys, starting with business onboarding.
The existing experience was affected by significant friction points and an outdated interface that no longer reflected the bank’s evolving digital vision. The redesign set out to do more than improve usability—it was strategically aligned with RAKBANK’s transformation goals, aiming to drive measurable business impact alongside a clearer, more intuitive customer experience.
As well as business onboarding, I also led the end-to-end design of a new multipartner onboarding journey.
The solution
A design process that adhered to a systematic, user-focused methodology rooted in insight, iteration, and purposeful decision-making
From the initial discovery phase and wireframing to concept development and prototyping, each stage was strategically crafted to align user requirements with business goals, ensuring a scalable and cohesive design framework suitable for the banking sector.
The work began with a deep discovery phase, aimed at understanding not only user needs but also the operational and regulatory realities shaping the experience. As the journey evolved from early wireframes to refined concepts and prototypes, each decision was continuously tested against real user behavior and business constraints. This iterative approach allowed the design to mature with clarity and purpose, resulting in a cohesive, scalable framework capable of supporting the complexity and ambition of a modern banking product.
Phase 1
Research & Analysis
I began my research phase by reviewing analytics data and identifying pain points where users most commonly dropped off. Through heuristic evaluations, competitive benchmarking and audits, I was able to identify several pain points such as: lack of guidance and accessibility, endless flows, complex content and copy.
Early in the process, users felt overwhelmed by the number of input fields, which often led to frustration and drop-offs. The flow also lacked clear guidance and feedback during document upload and verification, creating moments of uncertainty. Visually, the interface and tone of voice felt inconsistent, affecting clarity and confidence.
Phase 2
Journey mapping and user flows
I mapped the end-to-end onboarding journey to visualize each user’s touchpoints and decision paths for different roles. This helped highlight redundant steps and opportunities to streamline the flow.
In parallel, I validated the journey against business rules and regulatory requirements to ensure feasibility at scale. Multi-partner flow, document dependencies, and role-based permissions—were explicitly designed into the flow rather than handled as exceptions. This approach allowed the onboarding experience to remain flexible without sacrificing clarity, creating a structure that could support different business types while maintaining a consistent and cohesive user experience.
Phase 3
Wireframing & Prototyping
I developed low-fidelity wireframes to explore multiple layout and interaction possibilities for the application’s most imortant pages. The focus was on reducing cognitive load — grouping related information, minimizing input fields, and using familiar patterns for smoother navigation.
Once the structure was validated, I created high-fidelity mockups and interactive prototypes. I introduced a cleaner, more modern UI, improved color contrast for accessibility, and optimized typography and iconography for readability. The final deliverables included desktop and mobile interfaces, along with specifications to support the development.
Results
Early results showed a notable reduction in user drop-offs during critical onboarding stages, along with positive internal feedback on usability and brand alignment.
30%
90%
12,000
Reduction in drop-off rate
Users are satisfied with their application experience
Feedback
Definitely much smoother than most other banks for onboarding SME".
Launched on April 20th, the multipartner solution delivered measurable improvements in both operational efficiency and scalability. Since launch, 151+ accounts have been successfully opened, with 12% of total volumes transitioning from the legacy journey, demonstrating early adoption of the new flow.
The redesigned architecture significantly streamlined internal processes, reducing approval turnaround time to 3.4 days and fulfillment turnaround time to 2.83 days, compared to a combined 9+ days total TAT in the previous journey. In parallel, the new experience achieved a 4.6 CSAT score, reflecting high levels of user satisfaction.
