Hydrogen

Transforming Merchant Payments and store reps accountability

At a glance

Merchants frequently encountered delays when processing mobile bank transfer payments. On average, confirmations took 20 minutes but could extend up to 24 hours, leaving merchants and customers frustrated.

For merchants with store representatives, there was no mechanism to verify if payments were received or accurately recorded in their absence, giving room for dishonest store reps to mismanage or steal funds.

InstantPay solves these issues with instant virtual accounts, real-time transaction monitoring and notifications, and business management tools, ensuring seamless transactions and accountability.

I owned the end-to-end design process for InstantPay from user research to completion, ensuring that I delivered a product that solved critical pain points for merchants in a way that was intuitive and enjoyable to use. InstantPay was the first product the company successfully shipped.

My Role

Product Designer — Interaction Design, User Flows, Rapid Prototyping
User Researcher

Team

Product manager
Web developers
QA tester
Product design

Deliverables

Product Design, Interaction Design, User Flows, Rapid Prototyping, user research

Tools

Figma, Figjam

Key metrics

75%

monthly active users

56 hours

average conversion time for new users

34%

rate in cross feature adoption

Over 10x

average daily merchant revenue

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Insights from market research

Data showed that merchants were dissatisfied with their current bank transfer payment provider. When customers made payments via mobile bank transfer, it could take several minutes (or even days) for the payment to reflect or notify the merchant.

This delay caused frustration for both merchants and customers, leading to:

Long wait times for customers

Missed sales opportunities for merchants

Loss of trust in accepting bank transfers for payments

Furthermore, merchants with store reps or multiple branches had no way to verify payments in real time. In situations where the merchant was not physically present, they had no way of verifying if payments were received or accurately recorded, giving room for dishonest store reps to mismanage or steal funds.

We uncovered some key insights that further helped us drive direction

  • Merchants hated going to the bank to open business accounts due to long paper work and processes
  • Prolonged waiting times causes dissatisfaction and often led to canceled purchases
  • Instances of theft or mismanagement of funds by store reps eroded profits and business scale
  • The need for real-time payment notifications provide immediate updates on transactions, allowing businesses to monitor cash flow effectively
  • Merchants often resort to cash or card due to unreliable mobile transfers or credit if it's a loyal customer
  • Merchants unable to confirm payments in real-time risked losing customers to competitors
  • Reliance on manual processes, such as ledger entries, increased the risk of human error

Breaking down the problem: Forming assumptions

Pressed for time, we were given 3 months to build a complete MVP and test our assumptions. Some of the assumptions we made were

Merchants needed a fast and reliable payment platform that

  • Collects bank payments fast
  • Sends payment confirmation on time
  • Track transactions in real time
  • Enables seamless oversight across multiple locations and points of sale

Version 1 : Instantpay MVP

After months of development, we finally rolled out our instantpay mvp to test if we solved the problems we aimed to

A dashboard to view accounts and latest transactions

Upon signing in, the merchants lands on a dashboard where they can perform account functions. Merchants could 

  • view account details such as name and account number
  • view all transactions made to individual accounts
  • switch and select accounts to view. They also had access to view all accounts generated and properties at a glance
  • add new virtual bank account

Generate bank accounts in less than 30 seconds

To generate bank accounts for payment collections, merchants just needed to do three things, of which two are optional. They needed to give a label or a nickname to the account, tie the account to a location or assign it to a user or several.

Track transactions in real time

Merchants had access to transaction as they happened. They could also filter transactions by locations and accounts

Onboard users with ease

Merchants could easily invite users into their Instantpay account. This will allow merchants easily assign and unassign accounts to them. They could also disable and delete store rep accounts at any time

Store rep dashboard view

Store reps have access to a dashboard where they see all transactions made to their account(s)

Quantifiable impact

To qualify it a success, we measured user adoption, retention, payment confirmation times amongst other metrics to validate Instantpay’s impact on our users

  • Merchants got payments and notifications in 2 minutes or less
  • 80% of merchants reported high levels of user satisfaction due to faster payments with Instantpay accounts
  • 75% monthly merchant retention rate
  • 35% reported reduction in reported cases of fund mismanagement by sales reps

Version 2: Enriching the dashboard

We wanted to add immediate value to our customers and we got valuable feedback from them. They wanted to see payment trends throughout the day. So we decided to design a dashboard with richer points of value

Version 3: Poseidon and migration

Hydrogen had started building its omniportal- an access to several products businesses can use to simplify payments anywhere in Africa. The design team had this point was already building Poseidon – Hydrogen’s design system- and wanted to overhaul every product to meet our new design strategy and direction.
I revamped InstantPay product using the new design system

Virtual business bank accounts in seconds

Merchants can generate multiple virtual bank accounts on the InstantPay platform. These accounts can be used as a standalone account or assigned to users and locations. However, all transactions are under the merchant’s control, with same day or next day settlements, depending on the settlement cycle

User management

Before store reps can be assigned accounts, they would have been added to the merchant’s business. InstantPay allows merchants to manage their sales representatives by creating an account for them on the platform

When necessary, merchants can also disable or enable users and ensure full control over who can collect payments at any given time.

Location management

For merchants with multiple locations, InstantPay provides a comprehensive location management module. Merchants can assign specific store reps to different locations, monitor payments for each location, and enable or disable locations as needed. The platform’s dashboard allows merchants to have a clear, consolidated view of all locations.

We moved transactions

Transactions page was moved so we merchants could have a central place for viewing transactions across all products

Key Lessons

Clarity Over complexity

Simplifying complex processes, like creating virtual accounts or managing multiple locations, reinforced the principle that good design should make the complicated feel seamless

Collaboration is a superpower

Working closely with stakeholders, like product managers and engineers, highlighted the value of collective problem-solving and aligning diverse perspectives to build impactful solutions

Measure what matters

Designing with quantifiable outcomes in mind taught me the importance of tying design choices to real-world impact

Patience with people and processes

Understanding that merchants might be skeptical of new tools reminded me to respect users’ learning curves and design for gradual adoption

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