PayPal Mexico Compliance: No Balance

Overview: In 2019, around 2.8m consumers and 170k merchants were PayPal users in Mexico. Due to local regulations in Mexico, users could no longer hold a balance in their PayPal account; instead, they were only able to receive money and transfer it to a bank.

Our mission: Communicate these changes to Mexico users so that they will comply with the account changes, maintain current Mexico users who use PayPal for sending and receiving payments, and preserve PayPal’s overall business with Mexico.

My role: Developed and championed content strategy that balanced compliance restrictions with user goals across all touch points. Collaborated closely cross functional partners across different time zones, including: Design, Product, Legal, Marketing, Engineering, and Localization. Cut through conflicting stakeholder feedback by building and communicating clear, compelling narratives to guide the end-to-end product experience.

I worked alongside Content Design leadership to craft a content strategy that would support changes from: an audit of 1855 web strings and 320 mobile strings removing the term “balance” from all flows; proactive communications about PayPal Mexico accounts; and net new entry points for users.

Reduce confusion around removing “balance” from PayPal accounts by hand-holding them throughout the process

Reassure users that although their account has changed, they can still use PayPal to send and receive payments to their bank

Decrease users’ reluctance to link a bank by framing changes positively and presenting clear and compelling value props

I worked with Marketing to understand how our messages and tone would shift over time…

Once Product gave the Content Design team the gist of what they needed to communicate throughout PayPal Mexico merchant and consumer experiences - I worked closely with partners to align these messages with our PayPal content guidelines.

After going in circles about how to communicate important account changes to Mexico PayPal users, while also sifting through legal limitations - the Content Design team and I came up with a narrative to balance our user and product challenges:

In a nutshell, we needed to tell users:

Due to the increasing complexity surrounding this PayPal Mexico compliance project - I worked closely with Content Design leadership to imagine more human ways to reframe the narrative of the experience.

These narratives came in handy when we had to encourage stakeholders to lead with user-centric language, rather than product-centric/business-oriented content.

I imagined what the experience would sound like if it were a conversation:

I also imagined how the experience would play out if it was a face-to-face interaction:

Using a user-centric narrative was a powerful piece of rationale in meetings where there was conflicting feedback and concerns from cross functional partners. I was able to cut through competing views and find a solution with the team that balanced both product and user goals.

During my first ever Content Design project, I learned…

→ how to write a narrative that ties business and user goals together across merchant and consumer experiences

→ the importance of clearly articulating content rationale with cross functional partners who may have competing ideas

→ the importance of early partnership with Localization to align content upfront with regional standards 

→ that translating legalese is challenging but fun