Fernway onboarding, eleven screens to four

Fernway's funnel lost 41% of new sign-ups between the welcome screen and a verified account. The flow was eleven screens long, and seven of them were identity checks: passport, proof of address, tax number, business type, expected monthly volume.

The bank genuinely needed most of that. It did not need it on day one. A freelancer can't receive a payout until they are verified, but they can draft an invoice, add a client and see what the account does.

We sorted every question into three piles: needed to open the account, needed before money moves, and nice to have. Only four questions survived the first pile. Everything in the second moved to the moment of the first payout, where the reason to answer is obvious.

The third pile we prefilled. A freelancer's first invoice already names their business, their address and usually their tax number. We read it back to them and asked them to confirm.

Four screens: name and email, what you do, your first client, your first invoice. Verification happens on a single screen when the first payment is on its way, with the amount shown at the top so people know what is waiting for them.

We tested it with 26 freelancers in Denver and Lisbon before writing production code, then shipped behind a flag to 20% of sign-ups for three weeks.

Activation in the first 30 days rose 23%. Median time from sign-up to first invoice fell from 14 minutes to 4. Verification completion did not drop: 88% of people who reached the payout gate finished it the same day, because they had a payment waiting.

One thing to note: support tickets about verification went up for two weeks while we fixed the copy on the payout screen. Measure the week after launch, not the day after.