Acme Lending

Digital Loan Verification of Income & Employment

Project Overview

What if verifying your income for a loan took just minutes instead of hours? For Acme Lending, we partnered with TX Verify to implement digital Verification of Income and Employment (VOIE), delivering an experience design interface that improved how borrowers submit their financial documentation. By redesigning the verification process around human needs and digital capabilities, the number of borrowers moving through the digital verification process increased by 10% and reduced verification time by one-third for Acme Lending.

My Role

As a product designer, I developed the experience design. I conducted design-led research through user interviews and testing, implementing prototypes that integrated with financial institution APIs, bridging the gap between user-centered design and financial regulatory requirements.

Confidentiality: This case study reflects my perspective. Specific details have been modified to protect sensitive information while showcasing my design approach.

Project Duration: March - April 2019

Key Partners: Acme Lending, Finicity/Mastercard

Team: Fas Lebbie, John Adams

Problem Context

The traditional income verification process for loans is often time-consuming, unreliable, and frustrating for financial institutions and consumers alike. Out of 156 million full-time workers in the US labor market, 98 million are paid through payroll providers or third parties, yet the verification systems aren’t designed to seamlessly connect with these digital payment channels. Instead, borrowers must manually collect, scan, and submit documents, while financial officers spend hours verifying their authenticity and completeness. The existing verification process typically requires borrowers to provide physical paystubs or bank statements, which must then be manually verified by loan officers, creating a significant bottleneck in the loan approval process. This discrepancy stems from verification systems that haven’t kept pace with digital financial practices, resulting in inefficient processes and delayed approvals. While digital lending has rapidly evolved, verification has remained largely paper-driven, requiring borrowers to submit documentation multiple times and financial institutions to perform repetitive verification steps. Traditional verification requires multiple touchpoints, frequent follow-ups, and complex document submissions that frustrate both borrowers and financial institutions.

Design Interventions

Acme Lending aims to leverage digital connections to payroll systems and banks through consumer-permissioned data access, improving the loan process with a solution that could be GSE-accepted and dramatically reduce time-to-close. The design intervention focused on creating a digital Verification of Income and Employment (VOIE) solution specifically for borrowers seeking loans for Acme Lending. This solution aimed to reduce the verification process time by one-third while improving accuracy and user experience. I designed a digital platform that enables users to connect their financial accounts seamlessly through secure consumer-permissioned data access, upload paystubs directly from their devices, and generate verification reports that meet regulatory requirements. By leveraging direct deposit payroll data—representing over 90% of American workers—we dramatically improved the success rate of automated income verification compared to traditional methods. The platform achieved a 10% increase in digital verification completion rates. It reduced the verification process by 5 minutes per application, moving closer to the industry goal of shaving 8-12 days off the entire origination process.

John, applying for a mortgage with Acme Lending, must verify his Chase account and upload paystub.

Homepage showing mortgage application progress bar and verification instructions.

Popups explaining what data will be accessed and legal terms.

Welcome screens showing bank selection options.

Chase login screens and account selection process.

Income verification page with clear progress indicators.

Document upload options for income verification.

Confirmation screens showing successful account connection.

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My Approach

Design Process

Design Research & Strategy

We approached the challenge of improving the loan verification process by focusing on the experiences of both borrowers and loan officers, acknowledging that purchasing a home is one of individuals’ most significant financial decisions. In the US labor market context, where 98 million out of 156 million full-time workers are compensated through payroll providers or third parties—and with paystub verification accounting for 75-85% of the loan verification market—it became clear that a tailored solution was essential. Our design research involved direct interviews with Acme Lending’s customers and staff to uncover their specific needs related to loan verification. As an independent broker, Acme’s clientele valued a more personalized experience, which emphasized the importance of regulatory compliance in our design solutions. To address this, we developed personas representing typical users, including loan recipients and loan officers, ensuring our design was grounded in real-world use cases. Our findings indicated that any verification system must seamlessly integrate financial regulations while delivering a streamlined and efficient user experience. By conducting usability testing with relevant scenarios, we were able to pinpoint pain points and refine our strategies to meet both user needs and compliance requirements effectively.

Findings, Prototyping, & Implementation

During the research, users faced existing verification methods that failed to recognize digital financial relationships. Although participants exhibited high financial responsibility, the traditional income verification processes caused substantial frustration, mainly due to the cumbersome document requests identified as a significant obstacle to a positive borrowing experience. This led to identifying three key use cases: single account verification, multiple account verification, and error handling during verification. The new experience design screens for the verification journey were tested and refined, ensuring high-fidelity designs aligned with Acme Lending’s visual brand style. The implementation strategy emphasized creating secure data permissioning flows that empower borrowers by allowing them control over their financial information. The MVP design for the verification experience enables users to verify their income within seconds or minutes rather than enduring lengthy delays. Central to this process was developing a one-touch verification experience, allowing borrowers to grant access to multiple data sources—such as bank accounts and payroll providers—in a single interaction, eliminating the need for repeated document requests.

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Reflections & Impact

Within the initial implementation period, users experienced a 33% reduction in the time required to complete income verification, saving an average of 5 minutes per application. More importantly, we saw a 10% increase in the number of borrowers successfully completing the digital verification process. The seamless integration with financial institutions and intuitive upload features received positive feedback from both borrowers and loan officers. Users particularly appreciated the clear guidance through the verification process, the transparency of the data permissioning experience, and the immediate confirmation of successful verification. Loan officers reported fewer “stips” (stipulations requiring additional documentation), reducing the back-and-forth that typically delays the mortgage process. By leveraging direct deposit payroll data to verify income, we achieved higher success rates than traditional verification methods, which typically hover around 15-25% for automated solutions. Being GSE-accepted (supported by both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac), the verification system helps deliver representation and warranty relief for lenders while creating a more streamlined experience for borrowers.

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