Home

Turning Application Friction Into Adoption

Six Credit Products. One Clearer Path Through Checkout.

My Role
Led a six-week redesign of six U.S. and U.K. PayPal credit applications, creating a flexible shared framework that cut Pay in 4 from three steps to one—doubling completion (2.08×) and lifting portfolio-wide conversion from 51% to 79%.

Why PayPal credit applications needed redesign

A customer reviewing PayPal Pay in 4 on a phone beside an ecommerce checkout on a laptop.

A credit card takes seconds. Applying for PayPal credit interrupted the purchase every time. The project began with one question: how much of that friction was actually necessary?

The Scope

The assignment looked like six separate redesigns.

Six products had evolved across two markets, each with its own funnel, success metrics, and regulatory constraints. Side-by-side mapping exposed one shared problem: repeated checkout interruption.

Credit products
6
Markets
2
Checkout framework
1

  • Pay in 4

    United States

  • Pay Monthly

    United States

  • PayPal Credit

    United States

  • PayPal Mastercard

    United States

  • Pay in 3

    United Kingdom

  • PayPal Credit

    United Kingdom

Different products. Different constraints. The same interruption.

Deep Dive

Pay in 4 made the problem impossible to ignore.

Pay in 4 made the shared problem clearest: three application steps separated product choice from purchase completion.

  1. Legacy Pay in 4, screen one: the PayPal checkout wallet, with Pay in 4 chosen under Pay Later.
  2. Legacy Pay in 4, screen two: the offer, showing four payments of $71.25 and the terms attached to them.
  3. Legacy Pay in 4, screen three: a Review your info step for billing address and phone number, ending in Agree and Apply.
  4. Legacy Pay in 4, screen four: an autopay step for choosing a payment method and accepting the loan agreement.
  5. Legacy Pay in 4, screen five: checkout again, with Pay in 4 approved and a Complete Purchase button.

One page brought the decision back into focus.

The redesign consolidated the journey into a single review-and-apply page: offer context, customer details, payment method, agreements, and the decision, then back to checkout.

  1. Redesigned Pay in 4, screen one: checkout with Pay in 4 pre-approved, showing four payments of $52.50 and their due dates in place.
  2. Redesigned Pay in 4, screen two: a single Confirm a few details to apply page holding billing address, autopay, date of birth and the agreements, ending in Agree and Apply.
  3. Redesigned Pay in 4, screen three: checkout with Pay in 4 approved, a You are approved confirmation, and a Pay $52.50 Today button.

The three parts of the shared pattern

2.08×

Application completion

  1. 01 — Core flow

    Checkout offer, one review-and-apply page, approval returned to checkout.

  2. 02 — Content rules

    Value, payment schedule, editable customer details, payment method, and agreements sit above one Agree and Apply action.

  3. 03 — Controlled variants

    The flow holds while product fields, underwriting requirements, and US or UK disclosures change inside it.

Prototype

One product proved the pattern. Six products demonstrated its value.

Pay Monthly

2.3%

Increase in conversion

5.45%

Increase in annual iRev

Pay Monthly application screens
PayPal Credit application screens

PayPal Credit US

6.3%

Increase in conversion

10.32%

Increase in annual iRev

PayPal Mastercard

3.1%

Increase in conversion

7.61%

Increase in annual iRev

PayPal Mastercard application screens
PayPal Credit UK application screens

PayPal Credit UK

5.3%

Increase in conversion

2.22%

Increase in annual iRev

Pay in 3 UK

78%

Increase in conversion

37%

Increase in average monthly TPV

Pay in 3 UK application screens

US Credit

Pay in 4

Pay in 4

0%

TPV

Pay Monthly

Pay Monthly

0.00%

iRev

PayPal Credit

PayPal Credit

0.00%

iRev

PayPal Mastercard

PayPal Mastercard

0.00%

iRev

UK Credit

Pay in 3

Pay in 3

0%

TPV

PayPal Credit

PayPal Credit

0.00%

iRev

Every product figure is a change against that product’s preceding annual baseline — independent results, not shares of a portfolio total. iRev is annual incremental revenue; TPV is payment volume. The portfolio rows below measure the 2023 baseline against H1 2024.

2023

H1 2024

Credit portfolio utilization

47%
38%

Credit portfolio conversion

79%
51%

51% to 79%, an increase of 28 percentage points

Behind the Work

How the work ran: one shared pattern, recurring cross-functional review, six-product delivery

One shared application pattern governed the work. It fixed the core flow, named the variants each product was allowed, and carried the US and UK legal exceptions. Recurring product, legal, design, and leadership reviews held all six teams to it, from requirements through development and measurement.

  1. Empathize

    I focused research with PayPal Research on why six credit applications interrupted checkout.

    AIConnected six funnels, their metrics and the brief into one research plan

  2. Define

    I framed six redesigns as one problem, repeated checkout interruption, and set shared rules.

    AIChallenged US and UK assumptions and helped define success

  3. Ideate

    I led 40+ iterations, weighing options with product, legal, design and leadership.

    AIGenerated low-fidelity flow concepts under my direction

  4. Refine

    I refined one review-and-apply page with controlled variants for each product.

    AIExposed gaps in disclosures, underwriting fields and edge cases

  5. Prototype

    I chose a production-close path so six teams could build from one pattern.

    AIFigma MCP connected the shared pattern to production components

  6. Test

    I prioritized issues with PayPal Research and turned findings into design changes.

    AIOrganized findings across six products and two markets

  7. Implement

    I confirmed readiness with six product teams through specifications, QA and launch.

    AIApplied approved changes across variants and extended QA coverage

  • Tools
  • Figma + Code Connectdesign intent ↔ production components
  • Figma MCP + AI agentscontext, critique, implementation and QA

Signals become the next product decision

Design System Gap → Build Plan

Synthesized six product teams’ funnels, success metrics, and US–UK regulatory constraints into one model in ChatGPT. It carried 40+ iterations through stakeholder review.

A running strip of Pay in 4 application wireframes from iteration 3 through iteration 36, each pass tightening the plan, review, and confirmation screens.