Tech transformation & internal efficiencies

The company

WorldFirst - An international foreign exchange brokerage working to provide better rates than the banks in both B2B and B2C markets, with specific focus on expansion within the Chinese market.

The goal

Transform and digitalise the internal trading platform for our FX dealers working at WorldFirst. Increase business efficiency, reduce customer effort and comply with regulations.

The USERS

Internal Account Managers working in; The UK, The US, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and The Netherlands. 

Virtual account management system

Virtual Account management

THE PROBLEM IDENTIFIED

There is no easy way for Account Managers to create, manage, update and close virtual bank accounts for their clients. The manual effort has a large impact on resource and hence an avoidable operational cost to the business. By bringing together all the information into one interface and optimising time spend managing virtual accounts, our Account Managers will be able to focus their time in a more productive way on things that matter more to the clients.

THE CHALLENGE

  • There is no one source of truth about virtual account information

  • All information about virtual accounts and the communication with customers, sit in different ecosystems

  • Each market has different customer behaviour in relation to virtual accounts; the number of accounts, the demand for management, the range of currencies

  • Regional compliance and legal requirements much be abided by

  • The UX & UI of the existing back office systems mean they have have very poor usability, causing an ineffective and inefficient workflow for account managers.

DISCOVERY

  • Ethnographic studies with our FX dealers to understand the day to day process of booking payments and trades

  • Customer interviews with clients to understand where they feel the process currently sticks

  • Evaluative sessions with the FX dealers as well as members of the compliance, legal, sales and marketing teams to identify possible areas for improvement

  • Co-designing sessions with FX dealers to draw out multiple solutions

The outcome

A brand new interface in our back office systems allowing Account Managers to see an overview of their clients’ virtual accounts at a glance, add and edit “know your customer” information, create new currency accounts, communicate direct with customers, and remove accounts.

The experience was built from scratch with a new tech stack behind it (vertical rather than horizontal), meaning we also had freedom to update the visual design and run as a test, without disrupting the rest of our back office systems. This visual treatment was then continuously rolled out across all new back office experience as they were built out as part of the wider tech transformation work stream.

On average across the six offices, this piece of work led to an 8 hour time saving per week - one persons’ time for a full day. In Hong Kong this was double and saved 16 hours of time per week due to automated communication systems taking over the manual postal processes of the past.