Context

Cooperative banks face a range of market challenges, including a shrinking customer base and aggressive marketing from commercial banks. In response, they seek operational savings by digitizing internal processes and customer service.
The product addressing these needs is Advisory Banking Platform (ABP), developed by Asseco Poland since 2017. Since 2022, I have been involved in the product’s development as UX Lead.

My role

As UX Lead, I was responsible for positioning UX as a competitive advantage of the product. Beyond day-to-day design work, my focus was on establishing UX as a strategic voice in product development.

I led conversations with management, clients, and the product team, and planned and implemented a roadmap focused on scalability and modularity of the platform.

Exploring the context

Initially, the project did not include a dedicated research phase, as it was not accounted for during estimation - a common symptom of organizations with lower UX maturity.

To secure budget for a minimum viable research scope, I organized stakeholder presentations and referenced insights from previous studies to demonstrate potential value. They agreeded.

Based on early interviews, domain expertise, and desk research, I formulated the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1:

High IT operational costs in cooperative banks stem primarily from parallel work across multiple poorly integrated systems, rather than from individual inefficient tools.

Hypothesis 2:

Customer service employees spend a significant portion of their time on secondary tasks (data re-entry, status verification, context switching) that generate no direct value for either the customer or the bank.

Hypothesis 3:

New or less experienced employees experience significantly higher cognitive load from existing tools than senior employees, leading to longer onboarding and higher attrition risk.

To validate these hypotheses, we conducted in-depth interview with 10 customer service employees and 7 domain specialists. We collected surveys from 80 employees across several cooperative banks and conducted 4 bank branches shadowings.

Insights

The primary hidden cost driver turned out to be user uncertainty and stress, previously invisible to business stakeholders. Employees frequently needed to verify data correctness and re-enter the same information across systems.

The number of systems and their inconsistent, hard-to-learn interfaces further reduced efficiency. For new employees, the volume of knowledge required, lack of proper onboarding into legacy systems, and absence of familiar interaction patterns were often decisive factors in resigning.

Lack of in-process guidance was identified as a major source of stress across respondents.

Key survey insights:

• 68% of respondents regularly used 3 or more systems to serve a single customer
• 54% reported that at least 1/3 of their time was spent on non-customer-facing administrative work
• 61% frequently re-entered the same data across systems
• 72% of junior employees rated system onboarding as “difficult” or “very difficult”

Key interview insights:

• Systems perceived as fragmented silos handling partial customer reality
• Interactions misaligned with modern, intuitive digital standards
• Senior employees relied on personal shortcuts and workarounds

Key shadowing insights:

• Customer service frequently interrupted by re-logins due to short session timeouts
• Temporary data stored externally to avoid losing context
• Junior employees required frequent validation from senior staff

Designing the solution

When presenting research results to stakeholders, I proposed treating ABP not as another banking system, but as a cohesive operational layer integrated with existing infrastructure and enriched with previously unsupported capabilities. I wanted to build one-stop web software.

To define the required functionality, I initiated business workshops starting with a single question: Who should the user become?”. Although initially counterintuitive for business stakeholders, this perspective shifted scope definition from features to solutions improving everyday work under pressure.

“I do not want to feel pressure or stress related to IT systems while serving a customer.”

Architecture built to last

Instead of designing complete end-to-end flows, I focused on rules, patterns, and reusable components resilient to long-term system entropy typical for banking environments. This enabled scaling across multiple banks, configurations, and licensing models without proportional increases in design, implementation, or maintenance costs.

Iterating rules backward

As not all rules were known upfront, feedback continuously reshaped the design context. We iterated on design rules, not individual screens. If a new feature did not fit existing rules, it triggered rule extension or conscious scope limitation. This reduced average design and implementation time for new business areas by 30–40%.

Shifting responsibility from user to system

Uncertainty reduction meant removing decisions and checks previously placed on employees. ABP introduced a central client context, data integrations, and system-driven process guidance. The platform aggregated and validated data automatically, eliminating manual re-entry. This significantly reduced cognitive load, operational errors, and onboarding time.

360° customer view

Instead of a reporting dashboard, I designed a 360° customer view acting as the advisor’s operational center - focused on enabling the next action, not just presenting data.

Dual approval & contextual knowledge

In-system dual-approval workflows eliminated informal consultations. Integrated contextual knowledge made the system the first source of truth, reducing dependency on individuals and stabilizing teams.

Results

IT operational cost reduction on the bank side resulted from changing how existing systems were used. Treating ABP as a unified operational layer reduced parallel work, manual operations, and reliance on costly local workarounds.

Standardization, single work context, and exception reduction led to less IT support, fewer training needs, and predictable maintenance. This resulted in a 15% reduction in IT operational costs, without replacing core banking systems.

Employee turnover decreased by 18% due to improved working conditions, reduced stress, faster onboarding, and system-driven responsibility. For banks, this meant lower recruitment pressure, more stable teams, and real cost savings.

Impact

UX decisions did not improve individual screens - they reshaped system behavior and organizational workflows.

UX evolved from a usability support role into a decision-making framework for product and architecture. Over time, UX became a shared language between business, IT, and banking clients.

This project demonstrated that enterprise UX can drive real operational change, far beyond interface usability.