Turning İşCep into the Primary Bank for Millions
Designed Turkey's first Open Banking experience to increase engagement, unify access across 10+ banks, and make İşCep users choose it as their main bank.
Key contributions: leading and executing MVP designs, research, testing.
We brought Open Banking to İşCep, allowing users to securely connect and manage external accounts in one place. Launching with 10 banks, the feature enabled 15M+ customers to track balances, monitor transactions, and make transfers across institutions — all from a single interface. This marked a major step toward smarter, more transparent money management.
Problem
Regulatory changes mandated that all Turkish banks launch Open Banking features simultaneously — leading to a cluttered market with similar offerings and unclear user value.
Constraint
Worked across multiple product teams (accounts, payments, cards) with overlapping ownership.
Key decisions
- Prioritized features like card visibility, transfer shortcuts, and cross-bank payments to increase daily utility
- Restructured the Accounts and Cards menus to reflect a unified, action-first experience
- Laid the foundation for future features that reward bringing money into İşCep
Discovery & Research
Analyzed behaviors, interviewed users, and benchmarked top Open Banking apps to uncover real needs.
Mapping Complexity
Mapped transaction flows, edge cases, and errors to build modular user journeys.
Designing Trust-first UX
Crafted transparent flows with progressive disclosure and visual reassurance.
Cross-functional Collaboration
Partnered with compliance and engineering, iterating rapidly in agile squads.
Testing & Iteration
Prototyped, tested, and optimized flows post-launch to reduce drop-offs and improve conversions.
A usability test was conducted with 12 individuals, focusing on testing the clarity, completion, and comprehension of the various developed features.
50% of participants hesitated to add an account without seeing more context. Users wanted transparent details before making a decision.
We updated the drawer with a primary action ("Add Account") and two secondary options ("Maybe Later" and "Detailed Info"). This reduced hesitation and gave users control, without overwhelming the screen.
Users were not able to track their permission timeline to access their accounts.
To proactively monitor account access permissions, users are now notified via push as the access period approaches expiration — reducing reliance on their own initiative to manage account access.
These foundational features helped İşCep shift from a transactional app to a trusted financial hub for millions.
Unified Financial Access
Link external bank accounts directly to İşCep. Centralized view of balances, cards, and transactions.
Seamless Multi-Bank Payments
Transfer money across institutions. Pay from any linked account within İşCep.
Trust & Control
Granular consent management. Clear, permission-first onboarding flows.
- Used a drawer to increase feature visibility without disrupting the homepage experience
- Placed a contextual banner in the accounts section to introduce Open Banking within relevant user journeys
Drawer shows up on the home page to introduce Open Banking.
Banner area of Open Banking, placed within the accounts journey.
The "Transfer to my İş Bankası account" option promotes fund consolidation — driving both retention and primary bank behavior.
User evidence replaced missing benchmarks
With no local open banking examples, research and testing guided decisions.
Trust and business goals must be balanced
Promoting external bank connections required careful handling of trust and security while keeping İşCep primary.
Regulation directly shapes UX
Compliance constraints needed to be built into flows without hurting clarity.
Early alignment prevents rework
Long pipelines and strict rules made continuous stakeholder alignment essential.