How KEKS Pay made a great UX even better with credit card scanning

Splitting a dinner bill with friends, topping up your phone or paying for parking are the kind of small, everyday transactions that made KEKS Pay big.

‘’The idea was to build an app that’s close to our users, offers basic yet much-needed functionality and asks for very little in return,’’ Fedor Bauer, Product Owner at KEKS Pay, said.

‘’At first, it was all about making small transactions and group expenses less of a nuisance. We wanted people to exchange money the same way they exchange GIFs.’’

‘’Today, more and more people are migrating their financial habits to a place that feels more natural to them and Microblink’s technology is forming a vital part of that experience,’’ Mr. Bauer adds.

Asking for the bare minimum

The secret to KEKS Pay’s success may very well lie in the app’s devotion to simplicity.

You only need your name and phone number to create an account, an onboarding flow Mr. Bauer says had to be ‘’so unobtrusive it’s almost invisible’’.

‘’As soon as you sign up and see your friends and family on the app, you’re ready to add your card and start making what we call sweet transactions‘’. 

‘’The problem is, doing that by retyping some 30-odd characters isn’t exactly unobtrusive. It takes too much time and some people may not know where to find the required information on their card. 

‘’This is where BlinkCard comes in. With credit card scanning, we were able put these worries behind us and make what was once a dull experience exciting.

“In the very first month of the integration, we’ve seen an 11% increase in card activation rates, but far more importantly, we’ve had a 26% decrease in unsuccessful attempts to add a new card.“

‘’We believe it’s our duty to make our users’ lives easier, if the technology to do that is out there,“ Mr. Bauer said.  

‘’After all, it’s what they’ve come to expect from us.‘’

Evolving together

In its latest release, BlinkCard went intelligent, so to speak. The product received a major makeover involving the use of machine learning to better read and parse data on thousands of different card types. 

Mr. Bauer said his team welcomed the release with open arms.

‘’It was a natural step forward for us because anyone can use KEKS Pay, regardless of the bank they’re with, so we don’t always know what cards to expect. 

‘’With BlinkCard, we want to be at the very forefront of supporting them all and I believe machine learning is the way to get us there.

Priming users for more

‘’BlinkCard is an excellent piece of software that lets us onboard users more quickly,‘’ Mr. Bauer continues.

‘’But as you get more used to the app, you start to discover there are other things you can do with it, which again, incorporate Microblink’s technology in one way or another.

‘’And this is really what it’s all about. Staying visually and functionally consistent is what makes a great UX great.‘’

Opening a bank account

‘’For example, as of recently, our users can order their very own free prepaid debit card through KEKS Pay.‘’

‘’You simply scan your identity document with BlinkID, verify who you are and it’s all done. We set you up with an Erste prepaid account and a Visa you can use all across the world.

‘’So far, more than 15,000 people have made this choice. Instead of visiting our branch and going through extensive KYC checks in person, they became Erste clients in about 60 seconds, all from their smartphone. 

‘’For a bank, this is huge. It means that in a playful, colorful app, it has a modern client acquisition tool that actually works.‘’

Shopping online

KEKS Pay has also been breaking into the e-commerce market. 

Whether you are using Erste’s own KEKS prepaid card or any other card of choice, you can use the app to make desktop online payments even faster than before by scanning the QR code on your screen.

‘’Mobile e-comm payments via KEKS Pay are just a whole new experience,‘’ Mr. Bauer says.

‘’Our webshop plug-ins are easy to integrate, work with a range of e-commerce platforms and offer ‘unrivaled simplicity’ when it comes to online payments — as both users and shopowners describe it.

‘’Once again, it’s Microblink’s QR code scanning that brings that simplicity to life.‘’

Staying true to its colors

The pastel green icons and deep purple buttons may change, but UX will always be gold at KEKS pay, according to Mr. Bauer.

‘’We’re happy to see how much we’ve done with the app in its two years of existence but that’s just two percent of what’s on our whiteboard,‘’ he said.

‘’By partnering with companies who share this obsession with us and work at the cutting edge of their fields, I have no doubts that KEKS Pay will continue to give plenty and ask for little.‘’