Zelle® Bill Pay
With Bill Pay, customers can use Zelle to make fast, safe and easy payments to nationwide billers directly from their bank app or from the biller’s website. Zelle will build on the credibility it has already earned and leverage the established Zelle network to improve the way money moves.
Biller Direct and FI Bill Pay are the two well-established digital payment models.
Company: Early Warning® - Zelle P2P Payments
My Role: Lead Designer
Timeline: 4 Months (2021)
Responsibilities: Design Direction
Storyboarding
UX & UI Design
Prototyping
My Role
I took the lead in designing the Bill Pay Project from its earliest stages. My role encompassed every stage of the process, including ideation, in-depth research, competitor analysis, storyboarding, design, and prototyping. Collaborating closely with a Usability Researcher, a Content Strategist, two Product Managers, and a dedicated team of Engineers, we navigated through the project's complexities to deliver a cohesive and user-centric solution.
Zelle Biller Direct
With Zelle Bill Pay, customers can pay their bills online without sharing sensitive bank or credit card account information. As always, Zelle transactions are fast, safe and easy. Users simply log into their biller’s website or mobile app, select the bill they want to pay, choose the Zelle payment option, enter their email, U.S. mobile number, or the Zelle tag that they use for payments, and they are confident that their payment will made. Funds are immediately deducted from their checking account and sent to their biller.
Zelle Bill Pay allows customers to keep their sensitive information safe by sharing only their U.S. mobile number, email or Zelle tag with billers.
Account setup is easy - no need to look up and enter their checking account or credit card numbers. User simply enter their email or U.S. mobile number.
Zelle Bill Pay provides instant payment credit and confirmation.
Zelle is a trusted brand backed by the nation’s largest financial institutions.
What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?
Of the 15.5 billion annual bill payments in the U.S., 38% percent are still paid offline. and 62% paid online. People still pay their bills in many ways, and while this varies by generation, even Gen Z’ers are paying 16% of their bills by mail. Overall, offline bill payment accounts for 2.3 billion checks written annually, with the balance of offline payments being made via phone and in-person with cash and money orders. Considering nearly everyone carries a smartphone, this percentage is shockingly high.
Over the past decade, Biller Direct has emerged as the preferred model and now represents 76% of digital bill pay volume. That said, both models (FI Bill Pay & Biller Direct) have their long-standing challenges.
According to Fiserv (a Zelle reseller), customers also cite concerns about late payments and managing cash flow with 35% paying a bill after the due date and 65% of those incurring a late fee over a year. Given these numbers, it’s no surprise that people expect their payments to be credited to their accounts quickly – 42% say within minutes and 39% say by end of the day.
The current bill pay ecosystem has several pain points for billers as well. During our research, billers cited a desire to reduce returns, improve funds availability (mid- sized businesses), reduce customer calls to confirm payment has been received, and reduce processing fees/costs. Billers also cited a desire to “increase customer retention through a ‘delightful’ payment experience,” and meet their customers’expectations for real-time payments.
Highlights from the concept testing
The Zelle Biller Direct Bill Payment concept is favorably received by all generational audiences and should be considered suitable for launch.
▪ Among target consumers, Zelle Biller Direct outperforms Early Warning’s normative concept testing benchmark on the key call-to-action metrics of Overall Likeability and Believability.
▪ Performance ratings for the concept are generally favorable across Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z groups, but falls short with the Boomer cohort as consumers in this group perceive the Zelle Biller Direct concept less favorably.
▪ Of those that use auto-pay services to pay recurring bills, 53% would be likely to switch these payments to Zelle Biller Direct.
▪ In open-ended responses, participants most often cite convenience and safety/security as top reasons behind higher Intent to Use scores for the Zelle Biller Direct service.
“I would likely use this service more than others because I am already comfortable using the regular Zelle app and it would be simple transition to use the billing service too.”
— Ralph, Small Business Owner
"I would not have to share on look up my routing and account numbers. I could just enter my email address or phone number. That's easier and more secure.”
— Brandon, Small Business Owner
“I would use it to do everything in one place rather than have multiple bill-pay and money transfer options.”
— Sophia, Small Business Owner
Who are our users? What do they need?
1- Our target Customers are individuals that intend to use Zelle to pay bills from biller’s websites. Customers use ACH (Account/routing#), checks or debit cards to make these payments.
2- Our target Billers / BSPs want to offer comprehensive and innovative payment options including the ability to Pay with Zelle. Zelle is a trusted brand backed by the nation’s largest financial institutions and can become a method of choice to pay bills (in addition to offering a lower cost compared to credit card transaction fees).
3- Financial Institutions benefits:
Brand engagement: On a regular basis, consumers will use their banking credentials to do more than to log into their accounts to view balances and transactions.
Innovation: Financial institutions gain another value-added consumer touchpoint to increase their relevance in the lives of their customers. FI customers can use the service regularly to conduct additional aspects of commerce, deepening the relationship and increasing the importance of the FI providing the innovation.
Storyboards
After this research, I worked on a series of storyboards with our persona, “Tom” and the fictitious utility company, Phily Power Company. Collaborating with our Content Strategist and our PMs, we created scenarios which conveyed how Tom was able to pay his bills with Zelle. Through these storyboards (without delving deeply into the details of the high-fidelity wireframe & prototype), we wanted to capture attention, provide clarity, and inspire teams, stakeholders and particularly FIs, to take engage.
Tom Evans: A bachelor and teacher living in Philadelphia. Tom has been using his mobile phone more and more over the past few years to manage his finances and to pay his bills. Tom typically uses mobile apps (instead of mobile browsers) to transact with financial institutions and companies.
Phily Power Company: An U.S.-based investor-owned utility based in Philadelphia, PA. Philly Power Co. provides electricity to a majority of the population of northern Pennsylvania.
How does it work?
Paying bills with Zelle is fast, safe and easy. When setting up payment method or adding different payment options within the biller’s website, customers can select Zelle. Then, customers provide their Zelle “token” (U.S. mobile number, email or Zelle tag). Behind the scenes, billers validate the ownership of this token, by sending a request to the customer’s FI (via Biller FI) for payment authorization. Then, the biller validates funds availability at the customer’s FI and the biller receives payment processing notifications. The FI’s have to authenticate the biller, process payment request (accept or reject), and ultimately send payment information to Biller’s FI.
In order to illustrate the process more clearly to our partner FIs and billers, I designed and created a fictitious mobile app, “Soleil”. Soleil is wireless company that offers Zelle as a payment method. In this fictional scenario, our persona, “Tom”, uses Zelle to pay his “Soleil” wireless bill. When developing the Soleil app, I collaborated with engineers and PMs, working on each scenario and prototype.
Adding Zelle as a payment method
Usability Research
We designed two different solutions for paying bills via the biller’s website. In Solution One, the user will exclusively use the biller website. In Solution Two, the user will begin the process within the biller website, but then is redirected to their bank app. The goal of the research was to understand which solution was easier: (1) bill pay setup/paying a bill OR (2) setting up autopay. Also, we wanted to gather feedback regarding customers’ expectations for a bill pay product offered by Zelle. As well, we included a survey to gather this information.
We recruited 60 participants on UserZoom for an unmoderated usability test. Our test group included: 20 participants for only Solution One; 20 participants for only Solution Two, and 20 participants to go through both Solution One and two.
Below, you can see the prototypes for Solution One.
In this prototype, user will set up Zelle as a method of payments.
In high risk situation, user needs to approve a payment through their bank app.
Zelle is set up as a default payment method. User will see the bill, sets up the auto-payment and pay his bill
Usability Research Take Away
Overall, there were no usability issues for setting up Zelle as the payment method in Solution One.
People who preferred Solution One, commented that it was “easier, faster, and they didn’t like switching between apps”. (biller -> bank). Those who preferred Solution Two said it felt more secure.
Solution One ranked better than Solution Two compared to auto-debit for both setup and payment.
When asked why Solution One was their preference, they responded:
“I prefer Solution One because I don’t have to leave the biller’s app and it seems faster.”
“Easier to make sure it’s all done in one place. It feels cleaner without having to go back and forth.”
“The Solution two took too long and had a lot of unnecessary steps.”