Ola · Case study
KYC Verification
A regulator said "verify every wallet." My job was to make it something riders could actually finish.
Overview
Compliance, on a deadline.
The Reserve Bank of India mandated KYC verification for every prepaid wallet, with a hard deadline (first December 2017, then extended to February 2018). Ola Money wasn't just ride payments — it handled recharges, bills, and merchant transactions too. We had to get millions of riders verified, fast, without turning the wallet into a chore.
The challenge
The rules were complex. The rider's need was simple.
The regulation came with tiers, limits, and document rules — and it was tempting to expose all of it. But riders didn't want to understand prepaid-instrument categories. They wanted one thing: unblock my wallet. The real design problem was translating a regulatory maze into a single, finishable path.
Three tiers
Three levels of verification, one goal.
The mandate defined three verification levels, each with its own limits.
- 01 Basic KYC. The simplest path — valid a year, ₹10,000/month cap, no bank or peer transfers.
- 02 E-KYC. Aadhaar OTP verification — ₹1,00,000/month, ₹2,00,000/year, with transfers.
- 03 Full KYC. Manual ID and address checks — unlimited, lifetime access.
My honest read at the time: the feature got too complex by surfacing all of this. The lesson shaped what shipped.
Explorations
Every tier, every document, every state.
I explored the flow as a web-view: pick a verification type, enter your details, and finish — wireframed across Basic, Aadhaar E-KYC, and Full KYC, including document pickers, OTP entry, and success and failure states.
Shipped
Simplify, then get out of the way.
As the deadline tightened, we cut to the essential: a streamlined landing page where a rider picks an ID type and enters their details. Full KYC was deferred, and E-KYC processing was handed to Fino, an authorized provider. Just as important were the touchpoints that pulled riders into the flow at the right moment — in the wallet, on the ride summary, in offers, and even on the Ola Play in-car device.
A regulatory deadline, met with one finishable path.
What I'd do differently: expose the three tiers less, sooner — the complexity crept in gradually, and cutting it back late cost time we didn't have against the deadline.