Small Business Multi-Market Discovery Research
Multi-phase international research initiative across Canada, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and the Caribbean to understand the experiences of small business clients with Scotiabank’s business banking platforms.
Organization
Scotiabank, Global Transaction Banking
Timeline
Phase 1 (Canada): March - July 2025
Phase 2 (LATAM): August - September 2025
Phase 3 (Caribbean): October - January 2025
Role
Led user research end to end, defined research strategy and methodology, aligned with cross functional stakeholders.
Tools
Figma, FigJam, Maze
The Brief
In April 2025, our UX Research team was contacted by the International Small Business team to better understand how small business clients experience digital business banking across markets and identify opportunities to improve their experience.
We began in Canada, where small business clients often rely on a combination of business banking and retail banking to meet their banking needs.
As the work progressed, there was growing interest in understanding what could be learned across markets: which client needs, behaviors, and pain points were genuinely market-specific, and which were more universal. This led us to expand the research to small business clients across LATAM (Mexico, Uruguay and Peru) and the Caribbean (Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Trinidad and Tobago).
Across markets, CX, Product, and Design teams had already gathered client insights specific to their market, but the depth and type of evidence varied. What was missing was a consistent cross-market view that combined existing evidence with new research to identify shared patterns, meaningful local differences, and opportunities for markets to learn from one another.
"We don’t know what level of complexity or simplification is needed in ScotiaConnect or ScotiaEnLinea to best support small business clients.”
— Canadian Small Business stakeholder
What we sought to learn
Understand the drivers for small business clients to sign up for and to continue to use our business banking platforms
Understand the usage, behaviors and contexts of use for business banking platforms
Gather key pain points for small business clients as they use our business banking platforms
Identify capability gaps in business banking for small business clients
So that we can:
Prioritize functionalities and capabilities that small business clients
What we did
Reviewed support call logs, enhancement tickets, and SCO Pulse survey data to identify high-level pain points and issues
Screener survey to profile business banking clients, platform usage, and recruit interview participant
31 in-depth client interviews
Moderated usability interviews
What we learned in Phase 1 - Canada
I don’t want to do banking, I want to do businesses
Small business clients see the bank as one of the many tools to run their operations. They want to complete tasks with minimum friction.
Clients: We build, heal, plan, create, and ScotiaConnect is one of the many tools we use to run our businesses. Don’t make us click around so much to get our tasks done.
Also clients: We account for ~60% of payment-related help desk calls, and consistently lower your NPS, logging 54% of ScotiaConnect Pulse surveys last quarter (33% of us detractors).
I need fast, high-value business payments
Clients: Our payments are typically lower value than corporate clients payments, but sometimes we need to transfer large amounts, for investments, equipment, travel, that go beyond personal banking limits.
Also clients: We are still using branches to send wires. 32% of all wires executed by business banking clients are happening in branch.
I need support for my operations, not friction
Clients: We hire seasonal and contract employees, and we’re also trying out different accounting software and third-party apps to streamline our banking.
Also clients: Current options for user administration and integrating between our systems and the bank’s are limited or where available complicated or “buggy”.
The two worlds need to make friends
Clients hop between platforms for identical accounts, with separate credentials and inconsistent flows, hurting activation and driving calls. Single sign on, and one login and one token are pivotal.
Clients: Why can’t you make it easier for us to bank with you? Why do we have to access the same accounts on two platforms?
Also clients: We love Scotia, have used it for years, and we want to do most or all of our banking with you.
I expect the bank to have my back
Clients: We’re innovative, agile, and entrepreneurial problem solvers. We know how to navigate complexity and figure it out when we need to.
Also clients: We still expect solid support when challenges arise. Our success can hinge on avoiding embarrassing client situations and frantic branch visits to fix issues.
Impact
Migration readiness
Proactive comms, and short format training (video and job aids)
1 Interconnected vision and roadmap
towards single sign-on, unified identity/permissions, and clarified cross-platform boundaries.
