Two days at Mumbai’s biggest fintech event. One conversation that changed perspectives. One statistic that made people actually look up from their phones — which in 2025 qualifies as a minor miracle.
The Global Fintech Fest 2025 brought over 100,000 fintech leaders to Mumbai from October 7–9, creating the kind of networking frenzy that makes LinkedIn connection requests spike for weeks afterward. Among the crowd, Rock Paper Scissors Studio made waves with a revelation that challenged industry norms about onboarding: their UX design approach helped clients cut onboarding time from 60 minutes to under 1 minute — a staggering 98% reduction that sounds like marketing hyperbole but is, in fact, just smart design applied to outdated systems.
The timing couldn’t have been more relevant. According to 2025 data, 78% of global internet users now use at least one fintech service monthly, and 91% of Millennials rely on fintech apps for payments, lending, or investing.
Yet traditional onboarding remains a nightmare. Studies show average fintech onboarding takes 45–60 minutes, and most users quit before finishing — presumably to do literally anything else. With conversion rates at just 21%, 79% of users abandon fintech apps before becoming active customers, creating churn statistics that make even seasoned CEOs lose sleep.
"We studied where users actually drop off, not where companies think they drop off," explains Chandni Chadha, Co-founder and COO of Rock Paper Scissors Studio. "The data told a completely different story than the assumptions, kind of like how movie audiences react differently than focus groups predict. Most onboarding flows are designed by people who already understand the product for users who don't understand anything and just want to accomplish a task without feeling stupid. It's like asking someone to assemble IKEA furniture without the instruction manual, then being surprised when they give up and order takeout instead."
When UX Design Becomes Business Strategy
Rock Paper Scissors Studio’s impact shows up in real-world results, not theoretical case studies. Their work with Finfinity, a fintech lending platform, achieved 10,000 monthly impressions, an 80% returning customer rate, and a 40% revenue increase.
Their collaboration with Turtlemint simplified insurance buying — turning a process that once felt like decoding hieroglyphics into something any user can navigate without frustration.
The magic lies not in faster screens, but in smarter thinking. By mapping real user journeys — not the idealized ones dreamt up in conference rooms — Rock Paper Scissors Studio identifies both emotional and functional friction points, redesigning flows to build trust gradually rather than demanding it upfront.
Day one of Global Fintech Fest delivered an unexpected masterclass in leadership communication that had nothing to do with technology and everything to do with human connection. Shivendra Singh, Founder of Rock Paper Scissors Studio, found himself in conversation with Radhika Gupta, CEO of Edelweiss Mutual Fund, at the West Bridge Capital networking event. "I had prepared profound questions about fintech's future and India's digital transformation," Singh admits. "Instead, I ended up asking about her productivity hacks and how she manages to make complex financial concepts sound like friendly conversations rather than academic lectures. Sometimes the best insights come when you stop trying to impress people and start being genuinely curious about how they think."
That conversation reinforced a crucial insight about both leadership and user experience design that most people understand intuitively but forget when building products: the best solutions make complex things feel simple, not simple things look complex.
Just as Radhika Gupta can explain market volatility in terms that new investors understand without feeling condescended to, great UX design takes inherently complicated financial processes and makes them feel intuitive rather than intimidating. This philosophy drives Rock Paper Scissors Studio's approach to fintech challenges, where regulatory requirements, security protocols, and user convenience often seem as mutually exclusive as oil and water.
The demonstration at their Global Fintech Fest booth drew crowds because it solved a problem that costs Indian fintech companies millions in lost customer acquisition, which is the kind of math that makes CFOs pay attention even when they don't understand design theory. Consider the economics: if a fintech app spends ₹500 to acquire each new user through marketing channels, but only 21% complete onboarding, the effective cost per activated user jumps to ₹2,380 - which is terrible math that makes marketing budgets disappear faster than free samples at Costco.
Rock Paper Scissors Studio's redesigned flows push completion rates above 85%, reducing that effective cost to ₹588 per activated user. For a fintech company acquiring 100,000 users monthly, this improvement saves approximately ₹17.9 crores annually in marketing efficiency alone, which is enough money to buy a really nice office or hire several more designers who appreciate good coffee.
But the real innovation isn't just about speed, because making something faster doesn't automatically make it better - just ask anyone who's used a really fast but terrible app. It's about understanding user psychology and removing unnecessary friction from processes that financial institutions have overcomplicated through years of regulatory additions, internal stakeholder requirements, and the general tendency to add features that make sense in conference rooms but confuse actual users.
Rock Paper Scissors Studio's approach involves mapping actual user journeys rather than ideal user journeys that exist only in product manager fantasies, identifying emotional friction points alongside functional ones, and designing interactions that build trust progressively rather than demanding it upfront like an overeager first date.
The broader context makes their Global Fintech Fest presentation even more significant than just another conference demo. India's fintech market is projected to reach $150 billion by the end of 2025, growing at approximately 31% annually according to PwC predictions, which represents growth that could transform how millions of people interact with money.
However, growth in market size doesn't automatically translate to individual company success, as many startups have learned the hard way. The companies that will dominate this expanded market are those that solve user experience challenges rather than simply launching more features or targeting new demographics with the same confusing interfaces.
As Steve Jobs once said, "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication," which sounds like a motivational poster but actually describes the hard work of making complex things feel effortless. Rock Paper Scissors Studio applies this principle to fintech challenges by eliminating unnecessary complexity rather than hiding it behind prettier interfaces that still don't work properly.
Their solutions work because they address root causes of user friction rather than applying band-aid fixes that look good in demos but frustrate real users. This approach requires deeper investment in user research and behavioral psychology, but it produces results that compound over time rather than requiring constant optimization sprints that exhaust development teams and confuse users who just want things to work consistently.
About Rock Paper Scissors Studio
Founded in 2020 in Bangalore, Rock Paper Scissors Studio is an independent design agency specializing in UX strategy, product design, and digital storytelling. The studio helps fintech, SaaS, and consumer tech brands translate complexity into clarity through data-driven design and human empathy.
🌐 Website: www.rockpaperscissors.studio
📧 Email: hello@rockpaperscissors.studio
📍 Offices: Bangalore | Mumbai | Pune | Delhi
