Managing financial transactions at scale can feel like navigating a maze with missing signs. What if we could provide a single source of truth for transaction visibility, making decision-making faster and more efficient?
Team
Lead Product Designer @ Interswitch
Timeline
Aug '23 - Jan '24
Contributions
Design, Strategy, User Interviews
Some context....
Interswitch is a financial technology powerhouse, processing over 1 billion transactions monthly across Africa, making it one of the most critical financial infrastructure providers in the region (source). As a leader in transaction switching, payment processing, bill payments, and card processing, it serves as the backbone of many financial services across Africa.
Our partners—banks, fintechs, and financial institutions—rely on Interswitch to power their financial products and services, ensuring seamless operations for millions of end-users. However, these partners often lacked a centralized way to track and manage transactions, leading to inefficiencies.
To address this, we built OpsCentral, a back-office product designed to enhance transaction and settlement visibility, ensuring partners could confidently access and manage their transaction data in good time.
The Problem
For years, financial institutions using Interswitch’s payment network had to navigate multiple back-office tools to track settlements, log disputes, and generate reports. Dispute resolution happened in Arbiter, while Extraswitch handled transaction reports—leading to inefficiencies and delays.
"A bank’s dispute officer trying to investigate a failed transaction had to switch between different systems, manually piece together transaction details, and often still end up with incomplete information."
Settlement data might be missing, the transaction status unclear, and the finality of the transaction unknown—leaving users frustrated and unable to make informed decisions.
Partners relied heavily on support tickets to retrieve transaction details, further slowing down operations and creating bottlenecks for both Interswitch and its financial partners.
Our challenge was clear:
The Solution
Results?
OpsCentral transformed how financial institutions interact with transaction data. Within six (6) months of launch, we had:
49
Instituitions Onboarded
283k
Search Monthly
30%
Drop in Support Tickets
Partners' Painpoints...
To deeply understand user pain points, we took an iterative approach, working closely with the Customer Success Team, which included support staff and key account managers from our partner institutions.
Fragmented Search Experience
Partners were required to query multiple back-office platforms with inconsistent search parameters, making transaction retrieval a time-consuming process.
Delayed Transaction Insights
Partners struggled to gain next-day insights into settlement, disputes, and reconciliation, leading to operational delays.
Over-Reliance on Support Teams
Because partners found it difficult to self-service their transaction queries, they frequently resorted to logging support tickets, increasing resolution time and straining internal resources.
PS: To create a more seamless experience, we analyzed logged support tickets and examined the most frequently searched transaction data points. This helped us streamline and standardize search parameters, integrating them into a unified and user-friendly product.
Who — Personas?
OpsCentral was built to support key financial professionals who rely on transaction visibility for their daily operations. Our primary users included:
Customer Support Officers – Addressing customer inquiries about failed or disputed transactions and providing real-time transaction updates.
Reconciliation Officers – Ensuring financial records are accurately matched between Interswitch and partner institutions to prevent discrepancies.
Settlement Officers – Overseeing fund movements, ensuring correct settlement processes, and resolving fund allocation inconsistencies.
Dispute Officers – Investigating transaction disputes, identifying fraud cases, and facilitating rapid resolution to enhance user trust.
Our Approach
Delivering Value Fast with an Iterative and User-Centered Process
We designed OpsCentral to evolve in phases, delivering core functionalities fast and iterating based on user feedback. Our approach focused on two primary goals:
Phase 1
Phase 2
Phase 1
Designing for Visibility
By focusing first on transparency and fast access to data, we ensured that partners could immediately benefit from improved visibility while allowing room for future iterations based on real-world usage.
Single and Multiple Parameter Search
Partners could locate transactions efficiently by searching with multiple criteria, such as transaction reference numbers, account details, and date ranges.
Bulk (File-Upload) Search
Allowed users to upload transaction lists for batch queries, reducing manual effort and speeding up workflow.
Next-day Transaction Visibility
Provided detailed transaction insights within 24 hours, significantly reducing reliance on support tickets and manual reconciliation
Challenges?
It wasn’t smooth sailing...
But these challenges were worth solving because they directly impacted our users’ experience.
Consolidating Search Parameters
Each back-office system had its own set of search filters and formats.
Solution: Designed a multi-parameter search, allowing users to search with any available transaction data while ensuring consistency across all platforms.
Shifting Partner
Behaviour
Encouraging users to adopt self-service search instead of relying on ticket requests.
Solution: We supported this shift with extensive user education—conducting live demos, sharing learning resources, and collaborating with account managers to onboard partners effectively.
Results?
OpsCentral transformed how financial institutions interact with transaction data. The results spoke for themselves.
49
Instituitions Onboarded
286,000+
Search Monthly
17 min
Average Session Time
70%
Reduction in support tickets
17 min
Average Session Time
70%
Reduction in support tickets
Reflections
Centralisation Drives Efficiency
Keeping users informed, even about small updates, made a huge difference in user confidence.
User Experience Matters in B2B
Even in back-office tools, intuitive design and smooth workflows lead to higher adoption and satisfaction.
Collaboration is Key
Working closely with internal teams and partners ensured that we built a solution that truly addressed real-world needs.
Next steps
Phase 1 has laid the foundation for enhanced transaction visibility, but there’s always room for growth.
Expand Transaction Insights
Introduce predictive analytics and AI-driven anomaly detection for fraud prevention.
Enhance API
Access
Allow partners to integrate OpsCentral’s capabilities directly into their systems
Improve User Customization
Enable partners to create personalized dashboards and alerts tailored to their needs.
