Why I’m Closing My Pepper Bank Account 😒

My FB post from 3 years ago keeps getting comments from people experiencing the same problem

Five years ago, I opened a bank account with Pepper, a pioneering digital bank that promised a revolutionary banking experience. Their sleek branding,24X7 support and lack of fees initially impressed me

Pepper’s onboarding was exceptional — The video call with the bank representative to open the account and the welcome box I received afterward made me feel valued and excited about banking with them.

However, over the years, frustrations have outweighed the initial wow factor. As a product manager, I see this as a valuable lesson in the long-term impact of product strategy which focuses mainly on acquisition. While Pepper excelled at the initial onboarding (kudos there!). Their lack of focus on ongoing improvements and customer service made me walk away.

Here are some ways Pepper could turn it around

• “Xobyap”? Seriously: One day, I noticed a credit card transaction from xobyap in Pepper’s app. After some thought, I realized that reading it backward reveals the name paybox. I wrote a Facebook post about this discovery, which received 20 comments and 81 likes from others who shared the same frustration. It seems many people had googled the charge and finally understood its source thanks to my post but 3 years and I still see people encounter this issue.
• Returned Checks, Zero Notifications: several times, checks I deposited were returned for various reasons, such as mismatch between my signature and the one on the file. I only discover these issues when I logged into the app. Why doesn’t Pepper send text messages to notify customers immediately when checks are returned? This is exactly the kind of urgent information I expect to receive via push notification or SMS.
• Lost Your Check? We’ll send again and hope it arrives: My landlord still requires payment by check, so I ordered a new checkbook a month before my lease renewal. The checks never arrived. When I contacted customer service, they said they could only resend the checkbook by regular mail. I explained that mail delivery in my area is unreliable and offered to pay for courier delivery myself, but this option wasn’t available. Why can’t you offer the option for direct shipping during the check order process? Or, at the very least, allow it as an exception when an initial shipment fails to arrive?
• Unable to make a wire transfer: When I bought a used car, I had to make a wire transfer (Havarat Zahav) unfortunately Pepper does not have this feature out of the box, it’s only available through the service agent. Usually when you buy a second hand car, the buyer and the seller go together to inspect it, this requires enough waiting, so waiting more for the transfer isn’t acceptable. Why not add a form where I submit bank account details, and the banker returns to me on the phone immediately to verify the transfer offline? That sounds much better than waiting on the chat and then discovering that I need to call the customer service over the phone so they can verify my identity.
• State what is not supported: Pepper lacks several essential features that could improve my experience, ability to set up automatic transfers to other accounts and hold checks for safekeeping. It’s frustrating that the chatbot doesn’t even recognize these options, forcing me to call customer service only to discover they’re unavailable. Why not clearly list unsupported features to save customers time and hassle?”

In the PM hat, I see edge cases that haven’t been prioritized. However, from a customer’s perspective, frequent frustrations signal it’s time to explore alternatives. My experience with Pepper, coupled with reading news and user feedback about One Zero (released in 2022) and the upcoming ESH Bank highlight a shift towards reduced commissions, better interest rates and innovative features. With founders like Amnon Shashua and board members like Kira Radinsky lets hope innovation will not be prioritized over features and customer needs.

You might ask yourself, What are the lessons learned, and how can we mix innovation with a culture of continuous improvements?

Here are some strategies to consider:

• Closer collaboration with customer service teams: Prioritize improvements based on direct user feedback.
• Allocate backlog space for feature enhancements: Dedicate a percentage of your product backlog to improving existing features.
• Schedule bug-fixing sprints or competitions: Implement bug-fixing sprints or hold bug hunt competitions to address issues.
• Implement ‘Help Me’ buttons: Add these to areas where you expect
  “unhappy flows”, give the user ability to explain why they are stuck and track them to discover new pain points.

A key takeaway for me as a PM is to discover whether customers value new AI-driven features more than addressing missing features or bugs in existing ones.