The problem
Payment apps in Ethiopia lose most people at the same place: KYC. Compliance demands identity verification up front, and every extra field is another reason for a first-time user to close the app and not come back.
What I did
- Rebuilt onboarding so verification is staged — get the user to a working account first, then ask for what compliance requires, with the method left to them.
- Offered four distinct verification routes (SMS code, USSD, internet banking credentials, branch-based) so users could pick the one that matched how they already bank.
- Ran usability testing on the flows and refined against what people actually did, not what the flowchart assumed.
- Designed the merchant side too — profit tracking, store breakdowns and shareable transaction reports.
Outcome
A payments app rated 4.2 out of 5 on the Play Store, with onboarding and KYC friction cited as materially improved and measurably lower drop-off.
4.2★
Play Store rating
4
KYC verification paths
↓
First-run drop-off