Santander Consumer Bank
Santander Consumer Bank is not a traditional retail bank: it specializes in consumer financing, personal loans, vehicle financing, and credit cards. A large portion of its web traffic came from external platforms such as Cars&Cars, where users were already actively searching for financing options.
01
The challenge:
The users were arriving on the website and leaving without converting. The experience was not effectively converting this high-intent traffic. The client needed to understand why and propose a redesign that would reduce drop-off rates and improve acquisition.
My role: I led the project end-to-end, working closely with the client’s Product Owner and developing the UX/UI proposal from research and analysis through to wireframes and visual design.
02
How I approached it
I structured the process into three phases:
first, understanding what was not working in the current experience; second, analyzing how competitors were solving similar problems; and finally, proposing a solution.
Phase 1 · Heuristic Analysis
I evaluated the existing website against established UX principles, system visibility, consistency, user control, error prevention, and navigation efficiency.
I identified six critical areas:
Value proposition, Hierarchy, Overloaded menu, Information overload, Navigation and Internal pages.
Analysis and improvement proposals
03
Benchmark
I analyzed both direct and indirect competitors across Europe and the US, including consumer banks and financial platforms that are currently shaping user expectations around usability and simplicity, such as N26, Chime, and Wise.
Before proposing any solution, I analysed how leading digital banks and fintechs in the US and Europe were solving the same problems we identified in the heuristic analysis.
The goal wasn't to copy, it was to understand what users already expected, and where Santander Consumer Bank was falling short of those expectations.
What I found in the
US market
The US digital banking space is defined by radical simplicity. Players like Chime, Varo Bank and Current have built their entire proposition around removing friction: no fees, no branches, no unnecessary steps. Their interfaces are built mobile-first with a single clear value proposition visible from the first screen, something the Santander Consumer Bank homepage was failing to do.
SoFi and Marcus by Goldman Sachs showed how a multi-product financial platform can present a complex offer in a clean, approachable way, each product clearly separated, each with its own entry point, without overwhelming the user on the homepage.
Cash App (Square) and Venmo (PayPal) demonstrated the power of reducing the user journey to its minimum, a lesson directly applicable to the saturated navigation structure we identified in the heuristic.
Key takeaway for the redesign: US competitors consistently prioritised one thing above all else, making the value proposition unmistakably clear within the first two seconds of landing on the page.
What I found in the European market
In Europe, the reference points were closer to home.
N26 and Monzo stood out for their navigation systems: clean menus with no more than 5-6 items, each with a clear and distinct label. No cross-interaction, no ambiguity. This was in direct contrast to the 4-layer navigation structure we identified as a critical issue in Santander Consumer Bank.
Revolut demonstrated how a complex product catalogue, currency exchange, investments, insurance, banking, can be organised through a strong information hierarchy without overwhelming the user. Each feature lives in its own clearly defined space.
Wise (formerly TransferWise) was the strongest reference for copy and labelling: every field, every step, every button uses plain language that matches exactly what the user is thinking. No corporate jargon, no ambiguous labels.
Klarna showed the power of progressive disclosure, revealing information only when the user needs it, rather than presenting everything at once. This directly informed our approach to reducing the information overload identified in finding #04.
Key takeaway for the redesign: European neobanks have normalised a level of clarity and consistency that users now expect from any financial product, including consumer finance platforms.
The identified best practices were grouped into four main categories:
Clear and well-structured information, architecture ,Navigation menus that also functioned as breadcrumbs, Optimized scrolling experiences with parallax effects Visual modules that segmented information into more manageable blocks.
How the benchmark shaped the redesign
The benchmark wasn't about making Santander Consumer Bank look like a neobank. It was about identifying the minimum bar users now expect , and closing the gap.
The analysis revealed a clear pattern: the most successful products had removed every unnecessary element from the user journey. Less navigation, clearer language, and a single visible value proposition were the common denominators across all markets.
04
The proposal
The redesign touched every layer of the experience, navigation, structure, hierarchy and content organisation.
Before defining any visual solution, I rebuilt the information architecture from scratch, reordering, regrouping and reprioritising every piece of content on the site
Information architecture : The starting point wasn't aesthetics, it was structure. I mapped all the existing content, identified what was duplicated, what was buried and what was missing, and rebuilt the site hierarchy around how users actually navigate, not around how the company was internally organised.
Menu
The original navigation had a critical inconsistency: clicking on the top bar triggered a lateral hamburger menu, creating two conflicting interaction patterns in the same space. I eliminated the duplication and unified everything into a single, clean navigation bar with clear categories.
Cars section, Analytics data showed "coches" was the most searched term on the site, yet the content was scattered across different sections. I consolidated everything car-related into a dedicated, clearly labelled section, making the most in-demand content immediately accessible.
Homepage structure, I reorganised the sections from scratch, establishing a clear hierarchy: value proposition first, products second, supporting content last.
Each section has a defined purpose and a clear visual boundary.
Interior pages, Sections were rebalanced.
Those with excessive content were simplified; those lacking relevant information were enriched. The goal was consistency, every page feeling as considered as the homepage.
I identified six critical areas:
Value proposition, Hierarchy, Overloaded menu, Information overload, Navigation and Internal pages.
Old Menu
New Menu
Old Interior pages
New Interior pages
05
The result
The redesign is currently live in production on the Santander Consumer Bank public website.
The proposal was implemented faithfully, the new information architecture, the unified navigation, the reorganised sections and the dedicated cars area all made it through to the final product.
The client described the work as high quality and noted a significant improvement over the previous experience. For a project in the banking sector, where internal approval processes are long and conservative, having a design proposal implemented with this level of fidelity is a strong validation in itself.
As the implementation was managed directly by the client's technical team, I don't have access to post-launch conversion metrics, but the fidelity of the implementation and the client's response are strong indicators that the proposal solved the right problems.
Banners: The original homepage placed promotional banners in a prominent position, competing directly with the value proposition and making it harder for users to understand what the bank offered at first glance. I moved them to a horizontal scroll carousel further down the page, keeping the content accessible without letting it interfere with the primary message.
Companies section: The Empresas section was redesigned with a distinct visual identity to clearly differentiate it from the Clientes experience. Same brand, different look and feel, so users immediately understand they are in a different context with different products and needs.
Live screens
Reflection
What I Would Do Differently
Two things, mainly.
I would have insisted on participating directly in the user testing sessions. In this project, the client conducted them internally and later shared the findings with me, but it’s not the same. When you observe users interacting with your design in real time, you notice nuances that no report can fully capture: hesitation, micro-friction moments, and spontaneous language.
Technical constraints upfront
The site was implemented using static HTML due to technical and budget limitations, which I was not aware of during the design phase. Had I known this from the start, I would have made different decisions, for example, avoiding a dynamic banner carousel, which slowed down page load and led to implementation changes that may have affected the final usability of the design.
This project reinforced something important: performance constraints are a design input, not an afterthought. The technical briefing needs to be part of the process from day one.
Clients Page
Companies section
