Global Payments UX: Redesigning a High-Conversion International Transfer Experience

Wise · RBC · PayPal

I analyzed three major players in the international money transfer market: Wise, RBC Bank, and PayPal. Wise differentiates itself with clear exchange rate visibility, transparent service fees, and a simple step-by-step transfer process that helps build user trust. PayPal is strong in payment flexibility and ease of use but lacks detailed tracking and reliable rate guarantees. RBC provides the assurance of a regulated bank but offers a more complex interface with fewer user-friendly features.

Wise surfaced the most consequential insight: it shows the exchange rate and fee breakdown before users begin the transfer, not at the confirmation step. Users who see costs only at the end are more likely to abandon. This directly shaped two decisions in the redesign: moving live exchange rate display and a clear no-service-fee label onto the home page calculator, so trust is established before any commitment is made.

I created personas to represent different types of users who depend on global money transfer services to receive support, send funds to friends and family, and manage expenses across borders.

The journey map captured the end-to-end experience, from discovering and considering the service to signing in, transferring money, managing payees, and reviewing transactions, with a focus on improving transparency and simplifying key processes.

Mapping user actions, goals, problems, and emotions at each stage revealed where the process felt unclear, slow, or untrustworthy. These insights shaped the redesign strategy: improve transparency, simplify key workflows, and deliver a consistent, mobile-first experience across devices.

I created this user flow to map the complete experience of sending money internationally, from secure login through to transfer confirmation and transaction history. The flow covers the main journey of entering recipient details, reviewing fees, exchange rates, and delivery times, and confirming payment, while also accounting for supporting actions like managing payees, tracking transfers, and handling errors.

Visualising these interactions helped surface problems: unclear confirmation steps and complex payee management. Each pathway gives each pathway gives users clear feedback and guidance. The user flow became the foundation for refining the redesign, grounding decisions in user needs alongside business requirements.

I ran moderated user testing sessions focused on key user flows and interaction points. Participants thought aloud throughout, which surfaced mental models and confidence gaps alongside task completion patterns.

Three themes came up consistently. First, users were more confident navigating the redesigned transfer flow. The visible step counter and flat form layout reduced the hesitation that had appeared repeatedly in the legacy interface, where nested accordions left users unsure of their progress. Second, moving fee and exchange rate information earlier resolved a recurring trust gap: in the original design, users described feeling "surprised" by costs at the confirmation step; in the redesign, they could evaluate the transfer before committing. Third, mobile sessions confirmed that the stacked card layout for payee and transaction views eliminated the horizontal scrolling and mis-tap errors seen with the legacy table format.

These findings directly shaped final refinements to label clarity, feedback timing, and the prominence of rate expiry alerts. Without testing, the urgency of those changes would not have been apparent.

Due to NDA constraints, testing scenarios used anonymized content while preserving real-world complexity and decision-making patterns.

After user testing, I synthesized observations across sessions to identify recurring behavioural patterns rather than isolated usability issues. The analysis focused on moments that affected user confidence, efficiency, and trust, particularly where hesitation, misinterpretation, or uncertainty appeared consistently across different touch points.

Themes emerged around clarity of hierarchy, progression cues, recognition over recall, and reassurance at key moments. These patterns pointed to opportunities to reduce cognitive load and better match the interface to users' mental models, particularly in high-stakes, decision-heavy scenarios.

The analysis showed that relatively small adjustments (clarifying hierarchy, refining language, and improving the timing and visibility of system feedback) had a real impact on how confidently users moved through the flow. These insights fed directly into subsequent design iterations, keeping changes grounded in observed behaviour rather than assumptions.

Responsiveness was built in from the start, not retrofitted. The design was resolved into layouts for desktop, tablet, and mobile, with each breakpoint considered throughout the process.

Rather than scaling layouts down, I adjusted hierarchy, spacing, and interaction density based on context of use. Priority actions stay within easy reach on smaller screens; secondary information is disclosed progressively to reduce visual noise, without sacrificing consistency or brand integrity.