Timeline: 1 month | Role: User Research Lead, UX Design

The $4 Million Question

Ria was rejecting 50,000 transactions every year perfectly legitimate transfers from trusted customers who simply wanted to send more money than their limits allowed. Each rejection was a frustration for our users and lost revenue for us.

But here's what stuck in my mind: our customers didn't even understand why they were being rejected.

About Ria Money Transfer

Ria is a global money transfer company serving over 140 countries. I lead user research that directly shapes our product improvements, with a focus on identifying friction points that hurt both our customers and our business.

The Confusion Tax

During routine research sessions, I kept hearing variations of the same frustration:

Pooja: "No. I'm still confused, was it a per day limit or per month? Or if it was $3,000 or something I'm not aware yet??"

Khairulla: "I have requested by email and by phone, but no one has given me an increased limit. But with Xoom in one day I can send $20,000."

That second quote hit hard. We weren't just confusing our users we were losing them to competitors.

The problem wasn't the limits themselves. It was that we were failing to communicate what those limits were, when they reset, and how customers could increase them. Users had no visibility into a system that was directly blocking their goals.

The Compliance Wall

I knew the solution: give users transparency and a clear path to increase their limits. The challenge? Convincing our compliance and business teams that it was worth the regulatory effort.

In financial services, compliance isn't just important it's everything. Every feature carries risk. Every change requires legal review. And our stakeholders needed proof that this was worth it.

I worked with our business analysts to build the case: if we converted even a fraction of those 50,000 rejected transactions, we'd see a 5-10% revenue increase. More importantly, we'd keep customers who were currently walking away frustrated.

After mapping out the compliance requirements and demonstrating the revenue potential, we got the green light but only for a controlled trial.

Start Small, Prove Value

We launched with US-to-India transfers, our highest-volume corridor. The design focused on two things:

1. Crystal-clear communication of daily vs. monthly limits and reset schedules 2. An obvious path to request a limit increase directly in the app

The trial ran for one month.

Results

Revenue per transaction: +$0.20 Principal per transaction: +$80.00

But beyond the numbers, we stopped losing customers to competitors over a problem they didn't even understand.

What I Learned

This project taught me that in highly regulated industries, the design challenge isn't just about users—it's about building alignment with stakeholders who are legally required to say "no."

For future initiatives, I'll partner with business analysts earlier in the process. Their ability to translate user needs into profit projections is crucial for getting compliance heavy features approved. Great UX research identifies the problem, but in financial services, you need airtight business cases to solve it.