The problem

Currently, the onboarding experience for prospective clients of the private bank is weighed down by a, predominantly offline experience that users reportedly find "confusing" and "unclear", with many expressing frustration at multiple points of the onboarding process,.

Despite already in conversation with the private bank's advisors, advisors are challenged with the task of keeping prospects "warm", losing interest and momentum from asking clients to complete repetitive, confusing forms.

A clear misalignment with the premium, high-touch experience pitched by the bank.

The "warm prospect" profile

*insert photo
A financially sophisticated individual who has engaged with an advisor and is evaluating whether J.P. Morgan’s client experience matches its reputation. They expect efficiency, privacy, and polish — not paperwork.

Typically, they expect

• Their financial relationship with the bank is managed with integrity discretion

• A sense of exclusivity, not bureaucracy

• The bank to be committed to robustly protecting their data and privacy

• A seamless onboarding journey, that's not cumbersome

They're often frustrated by

• Requests to provide data without context, or a simple answer to why they need to provide sensitive information (such as marital status)

• Confusing language - including overly formal legalise or mismatched terms between advisor and digital communications

• Not knowing what'll happen next when completing digital processes next

Some of their preferences and behaviours

• Short, direct and clear communications

• Intuitively skims digital screens, trust cues before reading in depth

• Responds well to clean, visual reassurance and is comforted by privacy statements (although not an avid reader of such statements)

Critically, they need

• Transparency - as a HNW person, a top priority is protecting their reputation. They expect the bank to manage information about them with integrity, and ultimately also protect their reputation

• Clarity - They want to fully understand what's on offer, and if the fees associated with a new account is truly worth paying for

• Timely, relevant updates on their onboarding next steps (especially to keep them warm)

Objective

To uplift the onboarding experience, that's relevant, efficient and affirms confidence within prospects to ultimately commit to becoming a client of the private bank.

My role

Content design lead, with objectives to:

• Establish consistent product communication that accelerates conversion

• Piques and retains interest of warm prospects

• Instills familiarity of the private bank's communications

Approach

Discovery and research

I completed several exercises for discovery, including

• Mapping the end-to-end onboarding journey across both digital and human touch points

• Auditing existing communications and the current onboarding journey, identifying inconsistencies of terms, duplication of requests and other risks of cognitive friction

Design and content strategy

• Developed a unified content framework aligning tone, terminology, and structure across onboarding materials.

• Simplified forms and introduced proactive content explaining how and why the bank pre-fills certain information—building transparency and reducing perceived risk.

• Created modular content patterns for repeated interactions (confirmation messages, privacy disclosures, and advisor introductions).

• Partnered with compliance and legal teams to ensure every commitment to privacy was both accurate and human-readable

“I’d like for them to pre-populate everything and for us to take a look at it, making sure they do it correctly and then I just hit a button.” - Anonymous research participation

Testing and iteration

• Validated content prototypes with prospective clients and relationship managers.

• Refined the messaging hierarchy to surface trust-building statements earlier in the journey.

• Adjusted tone and pacing to mirror the conversational, concierge-style relationship clients experience offline.

Learnings and next steps