Banesco Account Opening Flows — UX/UI consulting across local and international onboarding journeys

Overview

This work brought together multiple related subprojects around Banesco Panamá’s account opening experience for local and international users.

My role focused on UX and UI consulting across the full onboarding journey, especially in the definition, review, and refinement of account opening flows from beginning to end. The work involved close collaboration with the marketing team and a third-party provider, with strong participation in Figma, design system alignment, flow decisions, and usability validation with participating clients.

Rather than treating each account type as a completely separate effort, this case reflects the broader experience system behind opening a Banesco account under different conditions and user contexts.

Project Snapshot

• Client / Company: Banesco Panamá
• Project Type: Digital onboarding / account opening flows
• Industry: Banking / financial services
• Scope: UX/UI consulting, flow definition, Figma collaboration, design system support, final-phase refinement, usability validation
• My Role: UX/UI consultant
• Collaboration: Marketing team, third-party provider, internal stakeholders
• Main Focus: Local and international account opening journeys
• Stage of Involvement: Strong participation in flow decisions, refinement, and validation

Context

Banesco Panamá offers several account types across local and international banking, including savings accounts, simplified savings accounts, and checking accounts. Its public digital ecosystem presents both local and international options, with simplified account opening available online and other products carrying different requirements and operational conditions.

That product reality creates an important UX challenge: users may arrive with different intents, different eligibility conditions, different documentation expectations, and different levels of familiarity with the process. In practice, this means the account opening experience cannot be treated as a single generic flow.

The work therefore required careful thinking around branching logic, user guidance, clarity of conditions, and consistency across a family of related onboarding experiences.

The Challenge

The challenge was not only to make the flow look better.

The real challenge was to help structure and refine multiple account-opening journeys in a way that felt clear, trustworthy, and easy to follow, despite the fact that different account types came with different requirements and conditions.

For example, Banesco publicly distinguishes between local and international account products, and also between regular and simplified accounts. Its simplified local account communicates that it can be opened online by a natural person residing in Panama, age 18+, with valid ID and internet access, and allows up to $5,000 in monthly transactions. The simplified international account is also presented as fully online, with requirements such as being a Venezuelan individual over 18 with valid Venezuelan ID, plus stable internet access; it also communicates a $5,000 monthly transaction cap. International savings and checking pages list conditions such as opening amounts from $1,000, minimum average balance of $1,000, and a 2-month grace period for the initial deposit.

From a UX perspective, that means the product has to do more than capture information. It has to orient users correctly, reduce hesitation, clarify what applies to whom, and prevent confusion before it compounds deeper into the process.

Goals

• Help structure account-opening flows across local and international scenarios
• Improve clarity around different conditions, requirements, and eligibility paths
• Support better UX/UI consistency across related onboarding experiences
• Contribute to Figma and design system alignment with the provider team
• Reduce friction through stronger hierarchy, guidance, and step logic
• Validate and refine the experience through testing sessions with participating clients

My Contribution

I was strongly involved in the UX and UI consulting work around these flows, especially in how they were shaped from beginning to end.

My contribution included:

• helping define and refine end-to-end onboarding flows
• working closely in Figma with the provider and internal team
• supporting design system consistency across screens and patterns
• reviewing conditions and branching logic for local vs. international opening journeys
• contributing to hierarchy, step structure, and interaction clarity
• participating in final-phase UX validation through testing with different clients
• helping the product feel more understandable and operationally coherent across multiple account scenarios

This was a collaborative role, but with deep involvement in the decision-making around how the journeys should work in practice.

Approach

My approach was to think of the account opening experience as a structured decision system.

Instead of seeing the work as a simple sequence of forms, I looked at it as a guided path where users needed to understand:

• which account type fit their situation
• whether they were entering a local or international journey
• what conditions applied to them
• what documents or steps they would need
• what to expect as they moved forward
• where the process needed reassurance, guidance, or simplification

That required close coordination with the provider, attention to design structure in Figma, and a product mindset that balanced business rules, banking trust, and usability.

Key UX / UI Decisions

1. Structuring distinct journeys without making the system feel fragmented

Because Banesco’s product offering includes different account types and local versus international paths, one of the main UX challenges was preserving clarity while avoiding an overly fragmented experience.

2. Clarifying conditions early

A major part of the work was helping users understand, as early as possible, which requirements or conditions applied to their path. In banking onboarding, unclear conditions create drop-off quickly.

3. Improving step logic and progression

Opening an account should feel guided, not opaque. We worked closely on how the process moved from one step to the next, making the flow feel more understandable and reducing unnecessary doubt.

4. Supporting trust through hierarchy and interface tone

In onboarding for financial products, trust is not only a brand issue. It is also shaped by layout, emphasis, sequence, and the clarity of instructions. Part of the contribution was making those interface signals feel more deliberate.

5. Keeping design system consistency across multiple subflows

Since the experience included multiple related journeys, consistency across components, screens, and interaction patterns became especially important. This was part of the collaboration in Figma and the design system layer.

6. Using user testing to validate interpretation

Testing sessions with participating clients helped reveal where users understood the process clearly and where they still needed stronger guidance, better labeling, or simpler flow logic.

Design System / Figma Collaboration

A strong part of this work happened through direct collaboration in Figma and close alignment with the provider team.

That included:

• refining screens and flow structures in design files
• supporting reusable patterns across multiple account-opening journeys
• helping design system logic stay coherent across related experiences
• reducing inconsistencies that could confuse users during onboarding
• making sure the experience felt connected even when business conditions varied by account type

Experience Validation

The UX layer of the project was strengthened through testing with different participating clients.

That stage was important because it allowed the team to evaluate how well people understood the process, where they hesitated, and which parts of the journey needed stronger clarity. In a product like account opening, that kind of validation matters because even small moments of confusion can weaken trust or increase abandonment.

Outcome

The result of this work was a stronger and more coherent onboarding experience across multiple Banesco account-opening scenarios.

The project benefited from:

• clearer local and international onboarding logic
• improved structure across different account journeys
• stronger consistency in UX and UI decisions
• better design system alignment across flows
• more grounded refinements through user testing
• a more deliberate and trustworthy account opening experience overall

What This Project Reinforced

This project reinforced something I value deeply in digital product work: complexity does not need to feel confusing.

In products with multiple conditions, business rules, and user paths, the role of UX is not to hide complexity artificially, but to organize it in a way that people can follow with confidence.

This case reflects that kind of contribution well: working between structure, interface, business logic, and usability to help a high-trust product feel clearer from the first step to the last.