That’s why apps like Chime, Revolut, Monzo, CashApp and Wise command loyal followings — not just for what they do, but how they do it. At STRV, we’ve helped FinTech teams reimagine everything from crypto trading to small-business banking. And we’ve seen just how much strong UX moves the needle… measured in signups, retention and sustained engagement.
Why Challenger Brands Are Winning
The best Fintech products don’t try to reinvent finance. They just make it feel simple, from onboarding to transactions to support.
- Revolut redesigned its payroll onboarding process, slashing the "Add people" step drop-off from –61.5% to –31%, and boosting overall onboarding conversion from 15.6% to 25%.
- Monzo managed to halve its customer acquisition costs by prioritizing app-powered reporting tools that users truly rely on.
- Chime achieves remarkably fast account openings; users can complete set-up in under three minutes, supporting its growth to a user base of over 22 million.
- Cash App eliminates decision friction by using single-action sign-up flows, optimizing user behavior.
- Wise turns complex cross-border payments into something intuitive. By using Flinks for instant bank account linkage, they eliminate unnecessary verification steps and boost sign-up conversion.
We’ve seen the same principles pay off in our own work:
- With Nav, our simplified onboarding helped the team attract more than 5,000 new accounts in just a few weeks — and directly contributed to higher loan approval rates. We also introduced a personalized dashboard and unified card experience that made small business banking feel more intuitive, from day one.
- With BitcoinIRA,, we took a dated, desktop-heavy experience and reimagined it as a mobile-first product built for speed and simplicity. We streamlined onboarding, trimmed down trading flows to just a couple of taps and introduced clear tracking tools that gave users better visibility into their crypto investments. The result was a modern, easy-to-use experience — and a meaningful lift in retention.
Each of these examples proves what matters most: UX that transcends aesthetics. Design, product and engineering that collaborate from the start. User needs that drive decisions, not internal agendas. And complexity? That stays behind the scenes, where it belongs.
What these teams prioritize
Where Legacy Banks Fall Behind
Legacy banks aren’t lacking in resources. What they’re lacking is product muscle. Many were built around scale and compliance, not speed or human-centric thinking. Instead of cross-functional teams, they operate in silos. Instead of fast iteration, they move at the pace of governance.
The problem here is that design gets looped in late. Legal copy and compliance concerns often dominate user flows. Dashboards are overcrowded. Onboarding drags. And while the backend may be robust, the UX ends up feeling like a patchwork of reactive fixes.
We hear the same challenges across the industry: web-first platforms that don’t translate to mobile, verification flows riddled with friction, interfaces that overwhelm users and personalization that doesn’t respond to real behavior.
Refreshing the visuals won’t solve these patterns. What’s needed is a rebuild of trust through clarity — simplifying complexity without compromising control.
Designing for Trust, Security and Clarity
There’s a misconception that strong UX means weakening security. The truth is the opposite. A well-designed product works within constraints (not against them).
When teams bring security and compliance into the process early, design becomes sharper, not slower. Using the right infrastructure helps reduce risk without adding UX drag. Leveraging proven platforms also streamlines compliance and frees your team to focus on experience, not red tape. And when the journey is transparent from end to end, users are more confident from the start.
At the core, trust is built through clarity: language that users understand, flows that follow users’ logic and legal steps that inform without overwhelming. The strongest experiences are the ones that respect the user’s time and intelligence.
Even the most friction-heavy moments — identity verification, account setup, complex transactions — can feel seamless with the right design approach. We’ve seen flows that once took minutes trimmed to just a few thoughtful steps, all while staying fully compliant.
How Legacy Players Can Shift Gears
Improving UX doesn’t mean starting from scratch. It starts by identifying where users drop off or hesitate, whether that's at sign-up, inside bloated dashboards or deep in transactional logic. From there, it’s about reworking those moments with real intention, not just surface-level fixes.
The biggest breakthroughs happen when teams work cross-functionally and iterate in the open. UX can’t be a finishing layer. It has to be baked into how products are shaped and scaled.
We’ve seen the most impact when companies simplify verification steps, introduce progressive disclosure and build personalization features that respond in real time — not just in theory.
The hardest part is often mindset. But once design becomes a core function, change tends to follow quickly. Better engagement. Higher retention. More trust.
Final Take
Challenger FinTechs cracked the code early: it’s not about piling on features. It’s about how your product feels. The most successful apps feel intuitive, clear and trustworthy from the moment users click in.
Legacy banks can still catch up. But to do so, they’ll need to stop designing for internal systems — and start designing for humans. And that means putting UX where it belongs: at the heart of the experience.
Think your UX could be sharper?
Our Vibe Check audit is a fast, no-fluff look at your product’s UX — what’s working, what’s not and where to focus next. It’s a gut check, but with receipts. Check it out.
