Fintech | Workflow | Customer Journey
Short-Term Loan Journey — 10 min to 2 min
Redesigned a short-term loan application journey and its integrations, taking application time from roughly 10 minutes to around 2 — treating it as a journey problem rather than a technology one.
10 → ~2 min
Application completion time
01
Context
The short-term loan journey worked, but completing an application took around ten minutes — long enough that the effort itself became a reason to drop off.
02
Problem
It was easy to read this as a performance problem. It wasn't. Time was spread across data the customer had to type manually, integrations called at the wrong moment, and steps that no longer earned their place in the flow.
Before
Manual coordination, limited visibility, effort scaling with volume.
After
Guided digital journey, automated deterministic checks, shared status model.
03
Customer / User
Customers applying for short-term credit, plus the operations team handling the applications that need intervention.
04
Discovery
- Walked the journey step by step and timed where the ten minutes actually went
- Separated time spent typing from time spent waiting on integrations
- Reviewed which fields were genuinely needed for a decision
- Analysed stage-to-stage drop-off across the funnel
05
Problem Definition
Which parts of this ten-minute journey are actually adding value, and which are just cost the customer is paying on our behalf?
06
Goals & Success Metrics
Application completion time
Materially lower than the 10-minute baseline
Manually entered fields
Replaced by retrieval where a source exists
Blocking integration time
Removed from the critical path where possible
Funnel completion
Improved stage-to-stage conversion
07
Constraints
- Live journey with customers in it — changes had to be phased
- Third-party latency and rate limits outside our control
- Compliance-mandated steps that could not be removed, only re-sequenced
08
Solution
Fetch instead of ask wherever a trusted source existed, re-sequence integrations so the customer isn't waiting on them, and delete steps that were no longer earning their place.
09
User Journey
10
Product Flow
Retrieve
Third-party APIs populate what the customer would have typed
Re-sequence
Slow calls moved off the blocking path of the journey
Reduce
Low-value fields and steps removed rather than optimised
Measure
Stage-level timing tracked after each change
11
Technical Architecture
Customer
Journey layer
Integrations
LOS
12
My Role
- Framed the ten-minute problem as a journey problem, not a performance one
- Ran the stage-level timing analysis and prioritised what to change first
- Defined the target flow, integration sequencing and acceptance criteria
- Partnered with engineering on phased rollout and validated results post-release
13
Key Decisions & Trade-offs
Fetch instead of ask
Replace manual entry with retrieval wherever a trusted source existed.
Trade-off: More integration dependencies to manage in exchange for a much shorter form.
Delete before optimising
Remove steps that no longer earned their place instead of making them faster.
Trade-off: Required agreement from stakeholders who owned those steps.
Measure before automating
Quantify stage-level time first, then change the largest contributor.
Trade-off: Delayed the first fix, but avoided optimising the wrong step.
14
Execution
Baseline
Instrument the journey and quantify time per stage
Prioritise
Rank changes by time saved against effort and risk
Roll out
Phase changes with monitoring and rollback paths
Validate
Re-measure application time and funnel completion post-release
15
Results
10 → ~2 min
Application completion time
Metrics represent selected project outcomes.
16
Reflection
- Instrument stage-level timing from the start rather than as part of the fix
- Test the reduced flow with real customers before scaling it to all traffic
- A slow journey is usually a design problem wearing a performance costume
- The cheapest speed improvement is a step you can justify deleting