I led the research that redesigned how business owners turn on payment protection, so they know which debits will stop and what to do first.
I led product research for a global bank's payment protection service, which holds checks and ACH debits until a business owner approves them. My assessment and studies shaped a clearer enrollment flow, a setup checklist, and a simpler way to review held payments, and my five recommendations addressed every problem the assessment found.
Client
A global bank
I changed names and details to respect my nondisclosure agreements.
My role
Lead product researcher
Focus
Stopping check and ACH debit fraud for business owners
Result
Five recommendations that covered all 68 assessment findings
Owners turned on payment protection to stop fraud, and the protection stopped the payments they meant to make.
In 2024 I led product research for a payment protection service at a global bank. The service protects a business in two ways. Check protection matches each check against the checks the business wrote, and ACH debit block stops any company from pulling money from the account until the owner approves that company.
Most owners I spoke with turned on the service after a scare, often at the urging of their relationship manager. Every owner valued the protection, and many still ran into trouble. Turning on debit block stopped every ACH debit until the owner added approved companies, and many owners did not know that. Payroll, tax payments, and loan payments bounced, vendors grew frustrated, and some owners turned the protection off again.
The service was also never a one-person product. An owner, a relationship manager, and often a bookkeeper, controller, or office administrator all shared the work, so the design had to make sense to each of them.
I layered four kinds of research so the field and the customers both had a voice.
Payment protection is a managed product, so relationship managers hear most of the pain first. I built the research plan around their feedback and the customers' own experience, and I fed every finding into the team's service blueprint. Click or tap a card to turn it over.
In an owner's words
It's less about tech anxiety and more about money anxiety.
A small business ownerPayment protection customer
Owners needed to know what would stop, what to do first, and who could help.
The same few problems came up in the assessment, the interviews, and the advisory boards. Owners did not know that debit block stops everything at first. They could not tell whether a payment from an approved company still needed a decision. They found the old terms confusing, and they wanted a person nearby whenever money moved.
I also found two kinds of owners. Some wanted to set protection up once and stop thinking about it, while others wanted to review every payment themselves. A good design had to serve both without making either one work harder.
- Owners usually spotted fraud because a payment broke their usual pattern.
- Owners went straight to the payments waiting for a decision and rarely noticed anything else on the page.
- Many owners did not have the company IDs they needed to add a payee before the first debit arrived.
- Tax agencies and the bank itself had to be approved early, or tax and loan payments bounced.
- Owners preferred the plain term approved list to the old safelist name.
- Bankers said owners do focused money work on a computer and want phone alerts for urgent decisions.
Five recommendations turned the findings into a clearer path from sign-up to daily review.
I combined the assessment gaps with the study findings, and the team folded the recommendations into four roadmap epics: debit block enrollment, check protection enrollment, and the protection hub before and after enrollment. Click or tap a card to turn it over.
Protect a business account the way an owner would.
I rebuilt the flows we tested as a working prototype under the sample name Smith Bank, with AI writing the code from my designs. The business, the accounts, the companies, and every amount are sample data.
Things to try
- Choose Protect more accounts and turn on debit block for two accounts at once.
- Finish setup and turn on phone alerts from the checklist with its Today and Tomorrow tags.
- Open Review payments and block the debit you do not recognize.
- Pay the Lakeshore Produce Co. debit and add the company to your approved list in the same step.
- Add an approved company from the Approved list tab.
One confident blue, serif numbers, and plain warnings keep every decision clear.
The prototype shares the calm, editorial Smith Bank look of my other business banking work: a Smith Bank wordmark instead of a logo; serif titles, company names, and amounts; small spaced capitals for labels; and thin rules in place of boxes. Red appears only where money is at risk, and every text color passes current contrast standards.
Color
- Smith blue
#005EB8Primary buttons, links, and the selected tab - Deep blue
#004A93Button hover states and protected account labels - Ink
#14212EHeadings, amounts, rules, and the wordmark - Slate
#5A6878Labels, company IDs, and secondary text - Mist
#F3F5F8The page background behind white panels - Alert red
#C0283DUnknown debits, blocks, and the Today tag - Amber
#9A5800Cutoff times and the Tomorrow tag - Done green
#127A3EProtected accounts, approved companies, and paid debits
Type
Wordmark
Smith Bank
Playfair Display
Screen titles
Security Center
Playfair Display
Amounts
$4,812.00
Playfair Display
Item titles
Lakeshore Produce Co.
Playfair Display
Labels
Decide by 5:00 PM ET
Open Sans
Body
Every ACH debit stops until you approve the company.
Open Sans
Components
Before you start notice
A short panel states that every ACH debit stops at first and lists what a good setup takes, before the owner commits to anything.
Account chooser
Each eligible account has a checkbox and its own protection choice, so an owner can enroll several accounts in one pass.
Setup checklist
Numbered next steps carry colored Today and Tomorrow tags, so the most urgent setup work is the most visible.
Decision tabs
To block, To pay, and All tabs, with the cutoff time above them, keep the one decision the owner must make in focus.
Confirm before money moves
Every block or payment opens a dialog that repeats the company, the amount, and what will happen next.
Principles
- Tell people what will stop before anything stops.
- Lead with the one decision people need to make today.
- Label every button with the action that will happen.
- Use the words owners already use, such as payee and approved list.
100%
of the 68 assessment findings addressed by my five recommendations
4
roadmap epics built from my recommendations
My recommendations went onto the product roadmap and set the order of the fixes.
The assessment, the studies, and the advisory boards gave the team one prioritized plan. Click or tap a card to turn it over.
I bring the same care to teams building fraud and safety tools.
Protection that blocks the wrong payment teaches people to turn protection off. As a principal designer offering AI-native product research and design, I help teams find the moments where safety tools confuse the people they protect and redesign those moments so people stay protected. If your team builds fraud, payments, or safety products, I would be glad to review your flows with you.
There is plenty more where this came from.
Names, brands, and data in my case studies are changed to protect my clients.
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