CapTech Quick Response Ensures Security at Top 10 U.S. Bank

When the pandemic hit, over 100,000 of the bank’s team members needed to transition to remote work. The first step? Getting every remote employee configured with a Multifactor Authentication MFA device that ensured the privacy of all communications and the security of all shared data. The bank’s MFA devices or “tokens,” were required for all associates logging into bank systems through remote desktops and VPNs.

Challenges arose right away, as the current token administration portal was not UX friendly, and not at all up to the task. As a result, frustrated employees who were frequently unsuccessful at registering and activating new tokens on their own, flooded an overwhelmed help desk with requests for help. These calls frequently numbered in the thousands each day. Additionally, the internal help desk portal was poorly designed, which increased call length and further contributed to the backup.

A team needed to be formed that could design and implement streamlined and improved versions of these portals on a very short timeline. Based on the expedited need and CapTech’s historical ability to deliver quickly, a full delivery team — including both a full-stack engineering team and a design team — was pulled together and immediately deployed.

CapTech met with multiple client stakeholders to determine inefficiencies in the current processes. They also interviewed help desk employees and recently onboarded employees to ascertain how their experiences differered, to identify pain points, and to determine where each was encountered. Based on the outcomes of these interviews, wireframes were created that outlined a new experience. Once a design was settled upon, a list of short and long-term goals were established and development of the new portal was begun utilizing a modern web framework that improved delivery time and security.

The MVP was created in a little over two months. This update brought the user and help desk portals to a more modern, scalable framework, with an enterprise tested, mature ecosystem. After the new portals were in production for several weeks, additional user interviews were conducted to determine places for improvements in the new application. Follow-up releases were identified and any remaining pain points within the application were remediated. At the same time, a significant amount of much-needed educational material was generated and embedded within the new applications to help ease users into these new processes.

The new self-service MFA portal streamlined the process for employees and new users, improved user education on MFA security, and reduced call volume for the bank’s internal help desk. Additionally, a new help desk portal was implemented in order to reduce the average time per interaction. Now, employees are better equipped to self manage the MFA process, fewer users require assistance from the help desk, and call time to resolve individual cases has decreased. Additionally, due to the more mature ecosystem, security and accessibility concerns are more easily addressed, and issues are remediated much more expediently. End users have reported improved understanding of the business need for MFA, and uptake across the bank has been greatly improved.