Enabling BNY to track payment data in over $9.5B daily transactions

Enabling BNY to track payment data in over $9.5B daily transactions

6min read

6min read

ROLE

Product Designer

TIMELINE

2025

TEAM

IMPACT

Outcomes

87%

Reduction in transaction lookup time

25%

User satisfaction

9.5B

Daily transactions

CONTEXT

What is Unified Payment Platform (UPP)?

In late 2024, I joined the Global Payments & Trade team to redesign Unified Payment Platform (UPP): a core internal tool used daily by hundreds of operations and finance professionals to track, monitor, and edit payment processing information.

PROBLEM #1

Information Overload

Looking at Excel, users had to drill down through busy columns to find key information they need to track payments.

Compounded by juggling between multiple platforms (Excel, UPP, APY) for different data, users had to sift through dense tables and multiple platforms to locate key payment details.

PROBLEM #2

Low discoverability

Critical records needing attention were buried, leading to missed actions.

During a timed usability study, It took users 9.3 seconds to find Shares and Price information in Excel for a specific account. This delay compounded over hundreds of daily transactions, contributing to slower processing times and increased reporting errors.

PROTOTYPING

Filtering & Search Functions

Instantly locate relevant transactions via status or transaction type.

Transaction searching

Search a transaction by Transaction ID, sender, receiver, or amount of money.

FEEDBACK

User Testing

After testing with 4 users, we found that our design changes were successful, however hinted at a different issue: not being able to understand data from a bigger picture.

I love the search feature, and use it every day. But sometimes it feels like I can’t see the bigger picture

I love the search feature, and use it every day. But sometimes it feels like I can’t see the bigger picture

USER INSIGHTS

Highlight Patterns

Users needed dense payment data to be easier to parse at a glance, reducing cognitive overload during high-volume processing

Holistic Data

Users still struggled to interpret trends and connections between transactions, signaling a need for synthesized, high-level analytics.

NEW FEATURE

Analytics

Easy to understand, scannable way for users to read and understand transaction data.

Search bar

Search transactions or pages from the homescreen.

Recent Activity

Catch up on recent transactions they might've missed.

PROTOTYPING

Data Visualization

Finding the metrics users wanted displayed in real-time was complicated, as well as figuring out which method of data visualization would be most effective. I drafted different versions of line charts, bar graphs, and pie charts depending on the data depicted, as well as different iterations of metrics in designs.

SOLUTION

Landing on the Final Solution

Early on, I assumed giving users the ability to drill down into data was the solution. But as I dug deeper, I realized the real challenge was deciding which types of data users needed a detailed view of vs. a summarized view.

REFLECTION

Focusing on Key Flows

  • Validating assumptions early can prevent building solutions on an incomplete understanding of user needs