Enhancing Payment App Conversions Through Smarter Card Scanning and KYC
Client
A fast-scaling fintech wallet provider launched with a clear mission: to simplify payments by letting users link multiple cards—credit, debit, or travel-specific—into one intuitive app. Their UX team aimed to make card switching, cashback benefits, and payment tracking seamless.
However, they faced a major hurdle: user drop-off during onboarding. Despite strong download numbers, a significant number of users never added a payment method or completed account setup.
Business Problem
As a non-financial institution, the company faced unique challenges around Know Your Customer (KYC) compliance. Since it wasn’t subject to the same regulatory frameworks as banks, it needed a way to establish user identity without introducing friction into the onboarding flow. The product team leaned on a clever insight: if a user possessed a valid payment card, they had likely already passed KYC elsewhere. This logic allowed the app to accept a certain amount of initial risk, enabling users to get started quickly and only requiring full KYC verification at higher transaction thresholds.
However, their existing solution—a card scanning tool from a different company—proved unreliable. Users struggled with poor scan accuracy and a clunky experience, leading to drop-offs and an uptick in fraud attempts involving stolen or harvested card data. The team needed a solution that could balance ease of use, fraud prevention, and compliance without compromising their high UX standards.
Solution
To address both user friction and fraud risk, the team integrated BlinkCard directly into the app’s onboarding and payment flow. This strategic addition allowed users to quickly scan a credit or debit card using their phone’s camera, completing the process in under three seconds. BlinkCard’s on-device processing ensured that sensitive payment data never left the user’s device, boosting both security and privacy. Importantly, the SDK also included liveness detection, a critical layer of protection that helped flag attempts to use screenshots or fake cards—common vectors for fraud using stolen or harvested data.
The integration was seamless across platforms, supporting both iOS and Android, and aligned with the company’s UX-first ethos. Compared to the implementation with their previous card scanning vendor, which had been prone to errors and failed scans, BlinkCard delivered a smoother, more reliable experience. This allowed the team to preserve the low-friction entry point that encouraged app engagement while simultaneously tightening defenses against fraud and improving overall conversion metrics.
Results
The company realized several benefits after integrating BlinkCard, including:
- Significant uplift in conversion rates during onboarding: more users who downloaded the app successfully added a card and began transacting.
- Reduction in support tickets related to failed card scans.
- Stronger fraud defense posture—with liveness detection flagging suspicious behavior early.
In highly competitive wallet and payment ecosystems, great UX alone isn’t enough. This company’s strategic use of BlinkCard helped align growth goals with compliance needs, proving that KYC and conversion don’t have to be tradeoffs. If you’d like to learn more about how BlinkCard can help your business, get in touch today.
