Redesigning user rejection
Credit card rejection was the most pressing problem Kiwi was facing as a business as
a poor application experience can frustrate users, hurt trust, and drive them away
Why redesign?
Credit card rejection was one of the most pressing problems Kiwi faced as a business.
A poor rejection experience didn’t just frustrate users, it hurt trust, led to social backlash, and directly affected retention metrics
On this initiative, I partnered with our APM and developers to reimagine how Kiwi communicates rejection, ensuring that even at the lowest point in a user journey, the brand felt empathetic, transparent, and trustworthy.
Research
We conducted both primary & secondary research to understand the pressing problems that users faced
Key user problems
When users applied for a credit card through Kiwi, a large portion were being rejected due to reasons beyond Kiwi’s control — such as banking partner policies, credit bureau issues, or mismatched details.
However, the experience they encountered amplified their frustration:
No clear explanation for rejection
User is frustrated even if they have good bureau report
Uncertainty about when (or if) they could reapply
Filling wrong information in application form
Fear of data misuse by third parties
Anxiety about whether their credit score was impacted
Business problems
Brand Impact
As a result of rejection the users is frustrated which leads to them going out on social media or playstore affecting ratings and overall image of the company.
User retention
As a result of rejection users who can use Kiwi for UPI, were also dropping of as they didn’t feel the need to stay as they got rejected
Reasons for getting rejected
User can get rejected due to multiple reasons, some of them are mentioned below
& many more....
Existing solution
The existing solution provided a lot of challenges like
Visuals (like a falling house of cards) reinforced failure.
No clear next step or explanation
Not giving users proper reasoning as to why they were rejected
Unclear whether users could still use Kiwi.
Stages where rejection can happen
Strategy
👉
We first focused on “Visibility” & “User retention” as these were the pressing problem at that moment
Visibility & retention
This mainly led us to think around these things & then only work on the initial wireframing
How to ease user frustration right after they get rejected
What kind of user to retain? (Mainly focused to retain good bureau users)
Final solution
Solution for some other rejection cases
Users with good score but still rejected
These users needed extra care as these were the users who were the most frustrated
They are the users who are important to retain as they will are most likely to get the credit card next if we onboard new banks
Impact
Almost zero review related to the above mentioned problems
Retaining 8% of the rejected users with W1 retention of 45%
Increased play store ratings by 0.2 (indirect correlation)