How Tinkoff sped up the process of registering individual entrepreneurs by changing a font

Hi! My name is Ruslan Fedorov, I am a product designer at Tinkoff. I want to share a case study, how we changed the font of several symbols and thus accelerated the registration of our clients’ business. Let’s go!

Context

Every day thousands of clients across Russia register their businesses through Tinkoff. Let’s imagine that you are one of them and want to register one. To do this, you need to sign documents in our application with an electronic signature. To issue the signature, you need to meet with a representative of the bank. At the meeting, you show a 10-letter-digit code unique to your device in the app, and the representative transcribes it into the paper application.

This is what the code looked like in the app

The part of the application where the representative transcribed the code

The representative then scans the application form with a special app and sends it to an operator to enter the code into the system. If the code is the same as the one on your phone, the system issues a signature. If not, it gives an error and you have to try again.

Problem

Representatives have different handwriting. Some are easier to read, others are more difficult. Therefore, operators cannot always understand the code in the application, so the system does not accept it.

43% of all applications in January did not pass the test the first time. And 8% failed the second time

Operators don’t understand what characters they have entered incorrectly, so they have to pick the code. Meanwhile, you sit in the representative’s car and wait for the operator to finish checking. In the worst case, they fail to match the code, and you have to meet with another representative again and repeat the whole process.

Solution: alphabet worksheets for adults

We started to think how to remove the factor of individual handwriting of representatives. And we realized that post offices had already solved this problem. They need to write zip codes on mail envelopes in such a way that any postal employee can understand it.

The solution consists of two parts: a dotted grid and a examples of writing numbers on it.

Field for filling in zip code on an envelope

The envelope grid did not suit us, as we have both numbers and some Latin letters. Decided to go with a 2x4 square grid.

All possible characters that can be in the code for representative

Since this character display is non-standard, I had to explain from scratch to the developers how to layout this beauty. The final specification in Russian:

Results and numbers

This is what the code for representatives looks like now

Grid and symbols in the application form

We’ve added the new characters to the paper application form first, and then to our app. The result is awesome. Judge for yourself: in June, only 2% of all applications failed the first time, opposed to massive 43% in January of the same year.

Green shows the percentage of applications where there was one error, red shows two or more errors

Now almost all applications (97%) are processed in less than 10 minutes. Previously, only 81% of applications were processed in that time. Long checks have almost vanished.

Everyone benefited from the solution. The code is much clearer for the operators, and the representatives don’t have to think about their handwriting — you just redraw on paper what you see on the client’s screen. It became easier to read the code, which made checking faster, and meetings went faster. And that means it has become even easier to register your business with Tinkoff 😉