Zelle Turnkey White Label

The Opportunity

Over a 6-month period of initial market entry, followed by 5 years of continuous growth, our mission was to transform Fiserv's existing P2P system into a comprehensive network by seamlessly integrating the Popmoney platform into Zelle. I led an international, cross-functional team, adept at addressing the myriad challenges that emerged. Our combined efforts resulted in a complete overhaul and implementation across more than 1000 banking user interfaces within the Zelle network. Since its initial release, Zelle's white label solution has garnered adoption by millions of users across thousands of banks and credit unions.

The Team

5 UX designers, 2 Frontend UI developers, 2 Accessibility experts, 2 Content designers, 1 QA expert, 1 supplemental Agency (HUGE) with 3 designers and 1 UI developer with 3 development teams.

Managing Time

Moving designs within an agile process requires can be challenging and requires early action. With an incredibly tight deadline, multiple design teams worked independent on product sections but continually met to create a unified design. I structured a unique primary group of a QA (Quality Assurance) specialist, an accessibility expert, a front-end developer, and a content designer to ensure project uniformity among the design teams. This team structure allowed for a constant and correct flow of work which moved ahead of development and had minimal QA issues downstream.

Personas

Evolving the P2P space allowed us to use our existing personas for Zelle. Our ongoing research for everything money movement proved a great resource to speed up production.

Mapping the Journey

We analyzed the existing person-to-person payment journey and adapted it for the new network. Gaining insights into the user journey provided us with a framework to integrate the technological architecture.

Architecture

Zelle Turnkey was developed on the foundation of the existing Popmoney platform, utilizing the same processing system. In an effort to minimize development time, the new product leveraged as many existing API and data processing points as feasible. Thoroughly mapping out all components, including risk management, email, and SMS communications, was essential for this process.

Design Structure and Grid

We developed a simple responsive layout to best accommodate the many implementations a client can adopt. To match the overall Zelle network we maintained basic patterns, and reduced the variety to 2 basic breakpoints.
UI development by HUGE

Branding 500+ Banks

Over 70% of Zelle interfaces are powered by the Fiserv turnkey solution. Neutral elements were critical so the product could be adapted to thousands of banking UIs. The responsive interface is simple but functions in mobile web, iOS/Android through web-view, tablet, and desktop. We minimalized CSS color management to fully brand WCAG 2.0 aa compliant interfaces. Any bank can quickly add a branded Zelle plugin through web-view or direct. Custom code was also available. Any bank, large or small, could have a fully branded and integrated payments experience with minimal effort.

Evolution, Testing, & Growth

As Zelle grew, so did the scope. Balancing business demands with design required routine user testing. Partnering with UserZoom provided an affordable path to find the trouble spots and refine.

Outcome & Lessons learned

We created a fully functioning product which beat the competition to market within months, using our existing transaction technology. The product is continuing to grow and is being used by millions of users through thousands of banks and credit unions. As Zelle grew, so did the scope. Balancing business demands with design required routine user testing. Partnering with UserZoom provided an affordable path to find the trouble spots and refine. Restrictions can be very useful. Zelle is deployed in thousands of banks and maintains a consistent experience no matter the interface.

- Fitting a new experience within an existing experience requires tons of compromise.
- Less features are infinitely simpler to maintain than more.
- Communication is critical when moving fast with many stakeholders.