Table of Contents
First impressions last. And in the world of digital products, a user’s first experience with getting onboarded onto an application and utilising it successfully can decide how much they trust a product.
While the best product flows look deceptively simple, they conceal the effort of passionate teams obsessing over every single detail. That’s precisely what set the stage for a cross-functional group at Cashfree Payments, as they took on redesigning one of the most critical parts of our merchants’ journey: onboarding with KYC and setting up payments for their business – Cashfree’s crucial first impression.
The team’s goal was simple: make onboarding fast, intuitive, and stress-free for every business, whether they were integrating payments into their website, on Shopify or uploading their first set of KYC documents. But what made this project special was the deep empathy, design craft, and thoughtfulness that went into every interaction.
Here’s how our product and design teams worked together to build a product flow that truly puts merchants first.
Reimagining the KYC Experience
The starting point for the team came with a concise vision: make the KYC experience feel simple, human, and fast regardless of the merchant’s business stage.
“Our primary objective was to increase onboarding conversions by enabling faster onboarding,” shares Ayushi Agarwal, our product manager.
To achieve this, Ayushi and her team focused on one core challenge: how do you reduce drop-offs and help merchants complete KYC without friction?
“We reordered fields to ask for simple details first and allowed non-critical inputs to be skipped. This gave users momentum early in the journey. We also built a dedicated mobile UX, not just a responsive desktop version,” she adds.
Putting this plan in motion with design, Ishita Sarkar, our product designer, stresses the importance of having a merchant-first approach, “ We acknowledged that our merchants come from diverse backgrounds, ranging from tech-savvy entrepreneurs to small business owners navigating digital platforms for the first time. We wanted merchants, especially SMBs with limited time and tech exposure, to feel confident and informed at every step.”
The team addressed this by meeting merchants where they are, without overwhelming them by:
- Breaking down the onboarding flow into digestible steps with clear progress indicators, so merchants always knew how far they’d come and what was next – offering a sense of control and momentum.
- Using progressive disclosure to show only the relevant fields at the right time, preventing overwhelm and allowing users to stay focused.
- Simplifying language with contextual tooltips and microcopy that replaced jargon with plain explanations, helping merchants complete tasks confidently without second-guessing themselves.
- Adding real-time feedback – from verified field tags to empathetic error messages – to offer instant reassurance and guide course correction when needed.
- Introducing motivational nudges and milestone-based feedback like celebratory confetti on completion, designed to reward progress and keep first-time users engaged throughout.
The result? “A simpler experience and a 25% increase in form completion rates. Every decision was made to make onboarding feel more human, fast, and forgiving,” shares Ayushi.
Designing the Perfect Day Zero
With a smooth onboarding KYC experience in place, the next focus was ensuring that merchants could start accepting payments effortlessly right from Day Zero. “Getting a payment gateway for a business isn’t as simple as signing up for a regular product, it’s a detailed process that often involves heavy documentation,” explains Nishant Kaku, our associate director of design.
Revamping this stage meant thinking deeply about what a merchant needs the moment they sign up, and how we could accelerate their journey to the first successful transaction.
Roshan Shah, our product manager, shares the clarity of the mission: “We wanted businesses to realise collection value faster and get started on the same day instead of weeks.”
To make this possible, the team went back to the drawing board. This meant not just building a new post-sign-up journey, but crafting a confidence-building experience from the first login to the first payment collected. “We focused on handholding the merchant till the Aha Moment of receiving their first payment, identifying what’s absolutely necessary to go live and bringing it right to the merchant’s dashboard. All the key actions and detailed video guides were placed front and center without merchants having to do through docs or support,” Roshan explains.
Another key decision was removing noise and distractions. “We gave merchants a tunneled view without any clutter until they complete their first transaction. That single focus made a real difference,” he adds.
On the design front, Nishant echoes the sentiment of making things frictionless for merchants too. Deep diving into the process, he explains, “For new signups, especially those without technical expertise, integration can be a big hurdle. To address this we broke it into smaller guided tasks, used simple language, added visual aids, and created a step-by-step journey that explained what’s needed and when. For Shopify users, where integration isn’t needed but activation can be tricky, we built a guided experience to help them complete setup and go live confidently.”
Together, these changes were all about helping merchants move faster. Nishant shares, “Everything we did—from simplifying forms to designing for clarity and support—was centred around one belief: helping merchants move fast.”
This was not just about better screens. “We questioned our existing design systems and created lighter, more vibrant components where needed. Collaboration across product, engineering, and support was key. We didn’t follow a handover model. We solved problems together,” adds Nishant.
The team also made sure every step was grounded in real merchant feedback. They spoke to merchants, consulted tech support and ops teams to get on-the-ground insights. That helped them shape a journey that was not only intuitive but confidence-building across business stages.
The results? “More than 5,000 businesses impacted. Shopify integration time cut down from hours to under 5 minutes. Web checkout integration time cut down from a week to a few hours,” shares Roshan.
Builder culture in action
Across teams, this project was driven by a shared mindset: small details create big outcomes and every element was designed to make merchants feel empowered.
Looking back, Ayushi reflects, “This build experience was both fast-paced and deeply rewarding. It pushed us to think boldly, act quickly, and stay grounded in what truly helps our merchants.”
“This project exemplifies what design at Cashfree stands for,” Ishita adds. “Solving complex problems with empathy, structure, and craft.”
For Roshan it was about finding the iteration was worked just right. “We went through 3 major iterations, and many smaller ones, to get here. But each one brought us closer to something we were proud to ship,” he shares.
And Nishant believes this reflects Cashfree’s strong culture of trust and collaboration. “We trusted each other’s expertise and leaned into each other’s strengths. We worked as one team, solving problems together for the merchant.”
While its always exciting to celebrate big launches,sometimes, the real magic lies in the quiet details – the ones built with empathy, tested with users, and refined until they feel just right.
Want to help shape merchant-first experiences like these? Explore careers at Cashfree Payments here.
