U.S. Bank — ACH Payments

Small business customers needed a reliable, in-house way to pay vendors, contractors, and employees via ACH — a secure, high-limit payment method without the friction of paper checks or the dollar-amount limitations of Zelle. I led the design from initial product brief through two major releases, building out the end-to-end payment flow for both web and mobile in React.

Apr 2022 initial release shipped
n=5 small business owners in moderated usability study
2 major releases designed end-to-end

Challenge

ACH payments live in a crowded space — customers already have Zelle, Venmo, checks, and wire transfers available. The brief was to make a platform that was reliable, clear, and flexible enough for real business needs. Before design kicked off, a key question had to be answered: why would a small business owner choose ACH over Zelle? The answer was higher transfer limits, tighter fraud controls via FTE enrollment, and flexibility for payees who don't share a bank account.

Why ACH? — comparison with Zelle and bills pay — Positioning ACH for small business: higher limits, tighter fraud controls, no shared-bank requirement

Approach

Product Scoping

Collaborated with the PM and business SMEs to define ACH use cases and what "reliable, clear, flexible" meant in practice for small business owners paying contractors and employees.

User Flows

Mapped the happy path from the landing page through recipient setup, payment details, and confirmation — then refined for edge cases around duplicate recipients, multi-pay, and recurring schedules.

Research & Testing

Ran a remote moderated usability study (n=5 small business owners) via Webex with a high-fidelity InVision prototype. Participants were given real-world payment tasks and follow-up questions.

Iteration

Study results surfaced demand for multi-pay (batch up to 5 recipients) and recurring payments — both were incorporated into the roadmap and shipped in the second major release.

Research and user testing — recipient management screen — Remote moderated usability study with 5 small business owners using an InVision prototype

Test Results

Users found the flow easy and intuitive — navigation from the 'External Transfers, Wires & ACH' landing page worked well, and repeat setups were faster. The main friction was setting up payments one at a time; small business owners wanted batch efficiency. The $1 processing fee was flagged as a deterrent, and the product team committed to working with the business line to reduce or remove it.

Responding to results — multi-pay concept UI — Multi-pay (batch up to 5 recipients) designed and prioritized for release 2 based on study feedback

Outcome

The first release shipped in April 2022. Based on research findings, multi-pay (up to 5 recipients per transaction) and recurring payment scheduling were prioritized and shipped in the next release. I handed off to a junior designer after release 2 while continuing to advise on patterns and design system alignment across the Money Movement org.