“How can I save time on the manual admin of paying multiple people at once?” 

We heard this time and time again from our business customers, both in user interviews and feedback surveys. Businesses wanted a way to pay their suppliers and employees more easily, and crucially to do it all in one go. Payroll in particular is one of the most critical payments a business can make, so how could we make that easier?

We set to work on launching a new feature, as part of our new Business Banking Team plan. This new feature now allows businesses to make multiple payments in one go. This blog will give you an insight into how we got there and our design process. 

Bulk payments is not a unique feature, in fact it's a foundational feature that exists elsewhere. However, we still wanted to design it in the Monzo way, by focusing on deeply understanding customer pain points and through thoughtful user-centred design. 

By looking into requests and insights from our current customer base we noticed that a lot of businesses said they would find value in being able to make multiple payments in ‘one go’ on a weekly or monthly basis. If Monzo offered this functionality, they could use Monzo to pay employees and suppliers regularly. 

Once we knew this was something our customers wanted, we built the case with leadership as to why this was something we should prioritise. We estimated how many similar businesses exist within the UK, which helped us to understand the total addressable market for the feature. As it turns out, it wasn’t just our Monzo customers who could benefit from this, but other businesses too!

Our next step was to connect with the people experiencing this need firsthand. We wanted to deeply understand how things were currently working—or not working—for them. Stepping into the role of a researcher, I immersed myself in the customer’s world. This wasn’t just about creating something innovative; it was about addressing real, tangible problems. 

We conducted in-depth interviews to uncover how businesses currently handle bulk payments and the tools they rely on. We explored their biggest challenges with existing processes, then tested a Monzo prototype to understand their expectations and identify what it would take to differentiate ourselves and make this experience "magically Monzo".

Illustrative user personas that we created to help us with our design work:

As Henry Ford noted, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” Don’t just ask what users want—watch how they work. The best insights often lie between what they say and what they do.

User journey maps visualise interactions, emotions, and pain points, uncovering gaps and guiding user-centred decisions. They deepen understanding of needs and behaviors, aligning product strategy with real-world problems. This clarity on all the touch points of the experience, helped shape our phased design approach, focusing on the things that deliver the most value.

Before drawing our first wireframes, we looked at what other players were doing. We created a comparison table for features and functionality between different competitors, did some UX teardown, and grabbed screenshots of the experience. This was all about understanding:

Quantitative data helped us uncover interesting insights around how businesses were currently paying suppliers and employees using the current single payment flow. We were able to identify how long it was taking businesses to make these payments as well as the frequency of making these payments (weekly / monthly). This highlighted the clear opportunity we had to make an existing process much more efficient. We were also able to understand the platform (web / mobile) businesses used to make the payment and how this informed how many & how much the payment was.

 Understandably, people wanted to use the web platform for larger and more frequent payments because of the likelihood of error. All of these insights fed into our overall product design strategy.

Once we felt like we had a better understanding of the customer’s needs and pain points with their existing solutions, we felt ready to start sketching something that would differentiate us from the rest. 

Our approach wasn't about delivering everything at once, but slowly improving the product over time. This meant that we could get a product to our customers as quickly as possible! 

We crafted a high-level vision for the future of Bulk Payments., aligning it with our long-term goals. This vision was then deconstructed into a phased design approach, balancing strategic ambition with actionable steps.

We began with low-fidelity wireframes (for the non-designers reading this, that means light weight sketches), enabling rapid iteration and early feedback on feasibility from engineering and leadership, while maintaining momentum.

Designing the Bulk Payments experience seemed straightforward but proved complex due to its integration with other payment flows. Dependencies on teams, timelines, and the product added layers of difficulty.

Challenge #1: Payment approvals for Bulk Payments had to align with business roles and permissions within the product. Collaborators could set up payments, but admins required final approval for critical transactions like payroll. User research validated this need for extra control, leading to cross-team collaboration to embed it.

Challenge #2: We needed to scale a number of single-payment checks, like confirmation of payee (CoP), to work across multiple payments so we could make sure the success rates of bulk payments matched those of a single payment. 

Challenge #3: Understanding the right place and platform for a user to complete a bulk payment in the most convenient way for them, meant we balanced the mobile and web app experiences. Research showed larger payments were often made on the web, where users could upload CSV files and manage salaries for 15+ people. On mobile, we optimised for quick tasks, like selecting multiple payees or approving payments on the go. Switching between platforms for approvals was a key consideration.

These challenges highlight the complexities of delivering an effective Bulk Payments solution, that is mindful of user needs. 

Racing against our Team plan launch deadline, we hand-picked beta testers from our initial research group—customers most likely to need bulk payments. The goal was simple: identify bugs and usability issues in real-world scenarios before full rollout. By keeping our support team on high alert, we could de-risk the launch while giving customers exclusive early access.

Good news… The testing went well!

and we launched a team plan, and bulk payments to our customers. 

To date a good level of product market fit is evident in roughly 70% retention and we’ve had limited negative feedback. Scheduling bulk payments (shipped end of Feb) might improve our retention in future. 

We also managed to give business owners some valuable time back, an average bulk payment, which has between 21-24 items, is estimated to save businesses about 10 minutes of manual processing (excluding file preparation).  

Put real user needs at the heart of every decision. Stay curious, observe more, and assume less.

Design with the entire ecosystem in mind. Use a phased approach to deliver focused, lovable products faster. Connect the dots across the full user experience.

Design is never "done". Continuously measure and iterate based on real user insights.

Product analytics and feedback are powerful signals; use them to guide your next move.

BE ready to adapt and pivot. Plan for moments where a decision needs to be made to continue forward or to pivot. Invest time upfront identifying potential risks and unknowns.

Design is a continuous conversation. Remember, great design is never finished. It's a constant dialogue between users, technology, and human creativity. 

If you're interested in working at Monzo, we have an open role for a Lead Product Designer, and don't forget to check out our career page with more info 🚀