Case 03 · Santander México
Nómina Digital
Onboarding Mexico's workforce onto digital banking — no branch required.
- Role
- UX Team Lead
- Team
- 6 designers
- Period
- Nov 2017 — early 2019
- Surfaces
- Web + mobile
The challenge
Two surfaces, one regulated onboarding system.
Surfaces designed — employer web app and employee mobile app
Designers led across 14+ months of discovery, design and delivery
Simplified digital account — no branch visit, ID verified via INE + selfie
National rollout across Santander's corporate payroll client base
Context
Santander México wanted to modernize how corporate payroll accounts are opened. The traditional process required employees to visit a branch, fill out paper forms and wait days for activation — a major friction point for HR teams enrolling hundreds of people at once.
Nómina Digital is a two-sided product: HR managers upload employee rosters in bulk, and each employee self-registers a fully digital N2 account from their phone — identity verified through an INE document scan and a selfie, with a digital card issued instantly.
The work meant navigating the financial regulator's N2 requirements, aligning with Santander's brand language, and designing two fundamentally different surfaces for two fundamentally different users while leading a six-person team.
My contribution
- Led a team of 6 designers across all phases of the project
- Directed discovery research — stakeholder interviews and employee user research
- Authored the service blueprint mapping the employer–Santander–employee relationship
- Oversaw UX design for the employer web app and the employee mobile app
- Aligned the design system with Santander brand standards
- Facilitated two rounds of usability testing and shepherded the development handoff
How it happened
The work, phase by phase.
Research, blueprint & UX strategy
Before any screen was drawn we needed to understand two distinct users — HR directors managing payroll for hundreds of employees, and workers who may never have used mobile banking — and to map what Santander controls, what the employer manages and what the employee experiences.
Branch visits are the barrier
HR directors cited branch-based onboarding as the primary reason employees delayed or avoided activating payroll accounts, especially where branch access is limited.
Mobile-first, but not mobile-native
Many employees had smartphones but had never used a banking app. The design had to assume near-zero familiarity with document scanning or selfie verification.
Trust is the conversion barrier
Employees were skeptical about sharing their ID and selfie digitally. The strategy prioritized brand trust signals and step-by-step transparency through the identity flow.
Web app, mobile app & design system
Both surfaces were designed in parallel. The employer web app needed a dashboard approach — data-dense but actionable. The employee mobile app demanded a highly guided, reassuring flow.
Employer web app
Bulk roster upload via CSV or Excel with real-time validation, invitation dispatch by SMS and email, an onboarding dashboard tracking invited / in-progress / activated per employee, and exportable activation-rate reporting.
Employee mobile app
Deep-linked invitation, guided camera capture of the front and back of the INE card, live selfie matched against the ID photo for regulatory compliance, then instant account creation and digital card issuance.
Validated across two testing rounds
Inline row validation resolved HR director confusion in the upload flow; a live camera overlay guide brought failed ID captures to near zero; a “what to expect” pre-registration screen reduced employee abandonment at the start.
Deliverables
Handoff, rollout & design ops
The final phase ensured a clean transition to development and supported the national rollout. Design ops work — style guide documentation and component specifications — made the handoff sustainable beyond the engagement.
- Structured handoff with annotated specs and a living spec document across dev sprints
- National deployment to the bank's corporate payroll client base
- Style guide covering typography, color and accessibility ratios
- Component usage rules, interaction states and do/don't examples
- Copy guidelines — tone, terminology and an error message framework
Outcomes & impact
Banking, delivered without the branch.
Digital account opening fully compliant with regulation — zero branch visits
Surfaces delivered in parallel within a single engagement
Designers led across 14+ months, from discovery to national rollout
National rollout — a first for the bank's digital product portfolio at the time
Service blueprints unlock alignment
Mapping the full employer–bank–employee service before touching screens gave the team a shared language and made regulatory constraints visible and discussable early.
Designing for digital beginners
The employee audience required a different mental model: every step had to earn trust before asking for anything. Usability testing with representative users was not optional.
Two surfaces, one team cadence
Running web and mobile in parallel required deliberate coordination. A shared component library and weekly alignment across the six-person team prevented drift.