Paisa

How fourteen conversations in Marathi doubled the bill payments people finish.

Lead designer with a PM and four engineers · Aug – Dec 2025 · Fintech · Android and iOS

Completed payments went from 34% to 68%.

Calls to support about the wrong bill fell by 41%.

Paisa's home screen: three bills due this week, the electricity bill first

The problem

Paisa had two million users and a problem nobody could explain: two in three people who started paying a bill never finished. The analytics showed where they left, at the consumer number and the confirm screen, but not why.

The old payment flow: of 1,000 people who open the app, 342 pay; 38% leave at the consumer number and 27% at the confirm screen — The old flow, from the analytics: most people left at the consumer number and at the confirm screen.

Research

I ran fourteen sessions at people's homes and at a phone shop in Hadapsar, in Marathi and Hindi. Most were paying an electricity bill for themselves for the first time; their children used to do it.

They didn't know their consumer number. It is on the paper bill, in small print, next to three other numbers.
They didn't trust the amount. The old confirm screen showed only "₹2,340"; nothing said it was their bill.
Forty tiles was too many. People scrolled past "Electricity" twice.

“If I pay the wrong bill, who will give my money back? So I stop and call my son.”

Sunita, 54, paying her electricity bill

Paper wireframes of a phone app on a wooden desk — Week one: paper, tested the same afternoon.

The old home screen with forty tiles next to the new one with the bills due — The direction we tested in week three.

What I designed

Bills come to you: link your consumer number once (we read it from a photo of the paper bill), and the home screen shows what is due. Before paying, one sheet shows the name on the bill, the consumer number and the month, each with a tick.

The old home screen: a banner, forty tiles and an empty form — The home screen. Slide to compare.

The new home screen: the bills due this week, the biggest one first — The home screen. Slide to compare.

What changed

68%finish a paymentup from 34%

−41%support callsabout the wrong bill

3rounds of prototypesbefore a line of code

What I learned

The analytics told us where; only sitting next to people told us why. And the most important element on a payment screen isn't the button: it is the line that says the bill is yours.