Santander UK is a major retail bank operating under strict UK regulatory and legal obligations. I worked within the Financial Crime function, leading UX design for the PKYC (Perpetual Know Your Customer) programme, a business-critical initiative designed to ensure ongoing customer data accuracy and regulatory compliance.
Company
Santander
Timeline
2023
—
2025
Role
Lead Product Designer
Project overview
The PKYC programme was designed to ensure customers periodically confirm and update their personal details, enabling Santander to meet UK legal and regulatory requirements related to financial crime prevention, risk management, and customer identity verification.
As Lead UX Designer, I owned the end-to-end experience across mobile and desktop, working in an agile, cross-functional environment from early discovery through to release. The solution initially relied on a physical letter to provide context and route customers into a digital flow. As the programme matured, the journey evolved to include direct in-app notifications, reducing friction and improving accessibility.
My role extended beyond interface design into experience strategy, stakeholder alignment, and delivery leadership, ensuring compliance requirements translated into clear, trustworthy customer experiences.
Challenges
Redesigning the digital onboarding and business banking interfaces for a global institution like Santander presented a unique set of multi-layered challenges:
Complexity & Trust: I was tasked with translating intricate fraud-prevention protocols and legal regulatory requirements into an interface that felt clear and reassuring rather than intimidating. The goal was to maintain strict security integrity without creating unnecessary friction that could lead to user drop-off during the sensitive onboarding process.
Designing for Radical Inclusion: With a user base of millions, I had to ensure the design worked for everyone—from tech-savvy business owners to individuals with lower digital confidence. This required a deep partnership with the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) to ensure every flow met the highest compliance standards while remaining intuitive for a diverse audience.
Operational Velocity: I navigated the competing priorities of compliance, usability, and aggressive delivery timelines. Leading within Agile workstreams, I had to advocate for User-Centric Design (UCD) methodologies, ensuring that even under pressure, the final product never compromised on accessibility or brand consistency across our various digital channels.
Strategic Consistency: Maintaining a unified design system across complex web and mobile platforms was essential to building long-term customer trust and reducing the cognitive load on users transitioning between different banking services.
Results
By balancing Tier-1 banking security with a modern, user-centric approach, I delivered a scalable end-to-end PKYC experience across mobile and desktop, successfully navigating the transition from initial conception to full release. This initiative accelerated Santander's strategic shift from physical mail to proactive in-app engagement, significantly improving customer access while meeting critical UK regulatory and legal compliance obligations at scale. Ultimately, the project established a robust, future-proof UX foundation for ongoing due diligence programs and resulted in a measurable increase in online interaction and user retention across the onboarding flow.
Santander UK is a major retail bank operating under strict UK regulatory and legal obligations. I worked within the Financial Crime function, leading UX design for the PKYC (Perpetual Know Your Customer) programme, a business-critical initiative designed to ensure ongoing customer data accuracy and regulatory compliance.
Company
Santander
Timeline
2023
—
2025
Role
Lead Product Designer
Project overview
The PKYC programme was designed to ensure customers periodically confirm and update their personal details, enabling Santander to meet UK legal and regulatory requirements related to financial crime prevention, risk management, and customer identity verification.
As Lead UX Designer, I owned the end-to-end experience across mobile and desktop, working in an agile, cross-functional environment from early discovery through to release. The solution initially relied on a physical letter to provide context and route customers into a digital flow. As the programme matured, the journey evolved to include direct in-app notifications, reducing friction and improving accessibility.
My role extended beyond interface design into experience strategy, stakeholder alignment, and delivery leadership, ensuring compliance requirements translated into clear, trustworthy customer experiences.
Challenges
Redesigning the digital onboarding and business banking interfaces for a global institution like Santander presented a unique set of multi-layered challenges:
Complexity & Trust: I was tasked with translating intricate fraud-prevention protocols and legal regulatory requirements into an interface that felt clear and reassuring rather than intimidating. The goal was to maintain strict security integrity without creating unnecessary friction that could lead to user drop-off during the sensitive onboarding process.
Designing for Radical Inclusion: With a user base of millions, I had to ensure the design worked for everyone—from tech-savvy business owners to individuals with lower digital confidence. This required a deep partnership with the Digital Accessibility Centre (DAC) to ensure every flow met the highest compliance standards while remaining intuitive for a diverse audience.
Operational Velocity: I navigated the competing priorities of compliance, usability, and aggressive delivery timelines. Leading within Agile workstreams, I had to advocate for User-Centric Design (UCD) methodologies, ensuring that even under pressure, the final product never compromised on accessibility or brand consistency across our various digital channels.
Strategic Consistency: Maintaining a unified design system across complex web and mobile platforms was essential to building long-term customer trust and reducing the cognitive load on users transitioning between different banking services.
Results
By balancing Tier-1 banking security with a modern, user-centric approach, I delivered a scalable end-to-end PKYC experience across mobile and desktop, successfully navigating the transition from initial conception to full release. This initiative accelerated Santander's strategic shift from physical mail to proactive in-app engagement, significantly improving customer access while meeting critical UK regulatory and legal compliance obligations at scale. Ultimately, the project established a robust, future-proof UX foundation for ongoing due diligence programs and resulted in a measurable increase in online interaction and user retention across the onboarding flow.