CKYC Onboarding
- Status
- Field report v1
- Timeframe
- 18 months from CKYC launch to ~10,000 daily onboardings
- Role
- Head of Product Design
- Team
- 3-4 designers, 2 PMs, 8 developers, compliance, operations, analytics
- 10x+
- Increase in daily digital onboardings
- ~800-900 → ~10,000/day
- Daily digital onboarding scale
- 4-5+ hrs → 3-4 min
- Typical account-opening TAT
- 70-75%
- Reduction in onboarding CAC
- 35%
- All onboardings now from digital channels
The onboarding was digital, but the operating model was not.
The first digital onboarding approach depended on Video KYC. Users entered Aadhaar and PAN, completed Aadhaar OTP, waited for a live agent, went through video verification, added details, and then waited for manual auditor review.
The flow ran into limit after limit: agent availability, working hours, queue load, patchy internet, whether the user had their documents ready, and a growing auditor backlog.
Outside 8 AM to 10 PM, the journey had to stop and ask users to return later. For many users, account opening took 4-5+ hours instead of feeling instant.
From human-dependent verification to 24/7 automated onboarding.
CKYC changed the operating model.
Instead of relying on a live Video KYC agent for every onboarding, verified identity details could be fetched through CKYC using CERSAI. This allowed eligible users to complete account opening digitally, at any time, in 3-4 minutes.
The real design work came after the rail existed: finding drop-offs, forming hypotheses, and continuously improving the funnel.
A CKYC-based digital onboarding flow:
- PAN and Aadhaar entry
- CKYC consent
- Identity detail fetch through CERSAI
- Required verification
- Alternate recovery paths when CKYC fetch failed
- Mandatory money load from the user’s own bank account
- Name-match validation
- Final account creation
The bank was one of the first in the industry to introduce CKYC-based onboarding.
Replace the Video KYC bottleneck
Video KYC looked digital but depended on agents, working hours, queue load, internet quality, and auditor review. CKYC moved onboarding to a 24/7 automated model.
Merge early landing pages
The first page was one of the biggest drop-off points. Merging page one and page two reduced early friction and helped users reach the core onboarding action faster.
Increase intent for fresh users
Existing wallet users had higher intent, but fresh users formed a larger traffic pool. Thanks 21 introduced a scratch-card reward on the first page to give new users a reason to continue.
Reinforce that money load was not a fee
Users often thought the mandatory add-money step was an account-opening charge. The flow explained that the amount would go into their own new account, including the ₹21 reward where applicable.
Tune money load for quality, not only conversion
The team tested ₹1, ₹50, ₹100, and ₹500 money-load amounts. Lower amounts improved account creation, while higher amounts correlated with better retention and quality.
Recover CKYC dead ends
When CKYC details could not be fetched from CERSAI, users were offered alternate paths such as DigiLocker and FaceRD. DigiLocker worked in-app; FaceRD required app installation but recovered users who otherwise had no path forward.
Improve name-match failures
After money load, the user’s other-bank account name had to match the KYC name. Initials, salutations, and formatting differences caused avoidable failures. Reviewing mismatch patterns improved the name-match step by 7-8%.
- Start onboarding
- Aadhaar + PAN
- Aadhaar OTP
- Video KYC queue
- Agent call
- Additional details
- Nominee details
- Manual auditor review
- Account opens after 4-5+ hours
- Start onboarding
- PAN / Aadhaar
- CKYC consent
- Identity fetch from CERSAI
- Alternate KYC recovery if needed
- Required details
- Own-bank money load
- Name match
- Account opens in 3-4 minutes
The CKYC onboarding flow
Account opening, from the first tap to a verified account.
Daily digital onboardings increased from approximately 800-900/day to approximately 10,000/day.
- Initial CKYC lift
- After CKYC launch, daily digital onboardings scaled to approximately 3,000-3,500/day.
- Final scale
- Approximately 10,000/day over 18 months after CKYC launch and continuous funnel experiments.
- TAT
- Typical account-opening TAT reduced from 4-5+ hours to 3-4 minutes, measured from the first onboarding page to final account creation.
- CAC
- Onboarding CAC reduced by approximately 70-75%.
- Digital contribution
- 35% of all onboardings now come from digital channels; the remaining volume largely comes through the offline retailer ecosystem.
- Name-match improvement
- 7-8% improvement at the name-match step after refining mismatch handling.
- Attribution
- Primarily attributable to CKYC-based automation and subsequent onboarding funnel experiments.
As Head of Product Design, I led the UX strategy for moving savings-account onboarding from a Video KYC-led flow to a scalable CKYC-based digital journey.
- Designing a user-understandable CKYC onboarding flow
- Identifying step-level funnel drop-offs
- Creating hypotheses for conversion experiments
- Improving the first landing step
- Increasing intent for fresh users through Thanks 21
- Reframing the mandatory money-load step
- Designing recovery paths for CKYC dead ends
- Improving name-match failure handling with product
- Aligning the flow with RBI constraints and Safe Second Account positioning
- Working with product, engineering, compliance, operations, and analytics
Digital UX is not enough if the operating model is still manual.
Scale often comes after launch, through step-level funnel work.
The best onboarding metric is not only completion.
It is activated, retained account quality.
Regulated flows need recovery paths, not dead ends.
A small misunderstanding can kill conversion.
The add-money step worked only when users understood it was not a fee.