You won the acquisition game. Traffic is steady, signups are happening, and engagement looks decent – until it doesn’t. Somewhere between registration and retention, users vanish.
No angry emails. No complaints. Just silence.
You dig into your metrics, trying to locate the bottleneck. Conversion rates dip, drop-offs increase, and CAC quietly climbs. But the problem isn’t just one broken thing – it’s a collection of small, often invisible friction points, subtly adding up to a broken experience.
These aren’t the bugs your QA team will flag. They’re not the flashy UX fails you’ll find on user testing videos. They’re deeper and more behavioural. And unless you know what to look for, they’ll keep draining value from your platform in ways that are hard to trace – but impossible to ignore.
Users aren’t ghosting you. They’re hitting walls you didn’t notice.
User drop-off isn’t always about product-market fit. Sometimes, your users want to stay. They see the value. But friction wears them down.
The challenge? Most of these blockers live in the post-onboarding layer – after users have shown intent but before they’ve committed. This is where trust is fragile, expectations are high, and patience is short.
If your platform includes any type of financial interaction – payments, wallets, user accounts, compliance processes – friction can escalate fast. Below are the less obvious culprits we’ve seen consistently sabotage growth across platforms, marketplaces, fintech apps, and more.
Friction #1: The illusion of choice in payments
Offering “multiple payment methods” isn’t enough when they don’t align with what users actually want or expect.
Picture this: your user is in France, buying from a Eurozone-based marketplace, and at checkout they’re faced with a SWIFT transfer or credit card form – with no SEPA Instant in sight. Cue hesitation. Maybe abandonment.
Real-world impact:
- Users abandon at the moment of payment due to lack of local familiarity.
- International users see unexpected fees or delays and lose confidence.
- Sellers or platform participants withdraw less frequently or churn.
What to do instead:
Map your audience geographically and offer native rails like SEPA, SEPA Instant, and localised payment methods. Don’t force a universal solution on a fragmented financial landscape.
Friction #2: Slow is the new broken
If you think users are tolerant of delays because “that’s how banks work”, think again. The modern digital economy has trained users to expect instant everything.
Waiting two days for a payout? Watching a status bar sit at “pending” for hours? That’s not just annoying – it’s a signal that your platform might not be trustworthy.
Especially for platforms offering:
- Peer-to-peer payments
- Gig economy or creator payouts
- Cross-border settlements
- Crypto-to-fiat flows
Speed matters. But so does perceived speed. If you’re not offering instant transactions, at least show real-time updates and proactive comms.
How to fix it:
Implement SEPA Instant where possible. Use real-time transaction APIs. Be transparent about delays – “3–5 business days” isn’t a customer-centric response anymore.
Friction #3: KYC that feels like airport security
Yes, compliance is critical. No, it doesn’t have to feel like applying for a mortgage.
Too many platforms slap on a rigid, one-size-fits-all verification process that creates unnecessary abandonment. Long wait times, no real-time feedback, unclear document requirements – these add up fast.
Red flags:
- Manual KYC checks that take days
- Broken mobile flows for ID uploads
- Lack of status tracking or user communication
Solution:
Smart KYC can be invisible and compliant. Automate checks. Embed them into natural points in the user journey. Keep users informed at every step. If it feels like a black box, they’ll walk.
Friction #4: Disconnected experiences between features
If your platform has multiple layers – say, wallets, cards, merchant services, or accounts – they need to talk to each other. Users notice when they don’t.
Example: A user tops up their digital wallet, but the balance doesn’t immediately reflect in their virtual card. Or they try to send funds to another user but can’t select them from their contacts.
The experience feels fragmented. Even if the backend is technically sound, the user experience tells a different story: this is patched together.
Remedy:
Consolidate your financial features using embedded finance infrastructure. A unified backend means a unified user experience – with real-time visibility and fewer support tickets.
Friction #5: Poor fit for your user’s real-world workflow
Sometimes the biggest friction comes from asking users to adapt to your system – instead of building around how they naturally operate.
A few scenarios:
- A creator platform that doesn’t offer recurring payouts
- A B2B marketplace that lacks multi-user account permissions
- A neobank with no way to label or segment user wallets
It’s not that the platform is broken. It’s just not built around the reality of the users it claims to serve.
How to solve this:
Talk to your users. Then tailor financial infrastructure to their world. Embedded finance lets you do this without a multi-year roadmap.
How embedded finance helps reduce invisible friction
Many of the most persistent friction points stem from one core issue: fragmented or outdated infrastructure. When financial processes aren’t built to serve real-time, cross-border, or platform-specific needs, users feel the gaps – whether it’s a delayed payout, a failed KYC flow, or the inability to transact in their preferred way.
Embedded finance offers a way to address these issues at the foundation. Rather than layering payments, accounts, or verification tools on top of your platform, embedded solutions allow you to weave financial services directly into your user journey. That means fewer redirects, fewer delays, and more cohesive experiences.
For example, platforms using embedded finance can:
- Enable users to open and manage accounts or wallets without leaving the interface
- Offer real-time or localised payment methods, like SEPA Instant or currency-specific rails
- Automate user verification in the background of key interactions
- Issue platform-branded cards or create user-specific account structures
- Support recurring transactions or merchant payouts natively
The outcome is not just better UX – it’s fewer support tickets, stronger user retention, and ultimately, more trust in your platform’s capabilities. Because when money moves the way users expect, everything else feels smoother.
Friction is inevitable. Losing users because of it isn’t.
You’ll never eliminate every bump in the road. But you can reduce the ones that matter most: the ones tied to trust, money, and momentum.
The platforms that thrive in this market are the ones that obsess over the silent moments. The ones that ask: Where are we making things harder than they need to be?
Because sometimes users don’t leave because of what you did.
They leave because of what you didn’t notice.
