What Tweaks Cause Problems With The Bank Of America App

Much has b een written about the Paycheck Protection Program's failings, including how big banks have favored big clients and left smaller businesses hanging, and how the SBA's systems have struggled to keep up with application demand.

Much less attention has gone to how some major banks failed on something they should have nailed: the digital user experience. Here was an opportunity for big banks like Bank of America — with their well-funded tech budgets and design teams — to provide a frictionless online experience for struggling business owners. Instead, they added hurdles and headaches.

Despite having our accounting act together, and despite being experts on using digital systems, we struggled at multiple stages of our application process. Others suffered more.

Here's our story, and lessons learned.

The Race

Our experience with Bank of America started well. PPP went live on Friday, April 3rd. B of A was the first major bank to launch its online application.

We applied soon after it went live, thanks in large part to having a payroll provider, Gusto, that was on top of the required PPP documents and calculations. We immediately received a confirmation email from B of A with clear next steps.

At the time, many small businesses were struggling to get their documents together based on changing guidance from Treasury, or to find a lender who would take their application. We felt grateful and ahead of the curve.

Two days later, we received another email from "Bank of America" asking for additional documents. That's where the problems began.

Problem #1: Suspicious Email

Here's the first thing I saw when I opened the email:

Early in the email, it read:

Bank of America is working with IntraLinks Exchange to gather your documents. That is our standard process …

Hmm. This wasn't just any email. It was a request for us to create a new account on a new platform, and then upload sensitive financial documents.

I'd never heard of Intralinks, and the name sounded like something a phishing scheme might use — especially with the newuser1 part of the sender address.

The formatting of the email was completely different from our standard Bank of America emails, with tiny, hard-to-read text. The first sentence was missing a period.

I searched on Google for "intralinks bank of america" and only found a few Reddit threads. Others were having similar doubts. Eventually I browsed the Intralinks website. Because I work in the tech industry and know what to look for, the site gave me the confidence I needed to move forward.

Still, I wondered: Why didn't the Intralinks email include a link to a simple page on Bank of America's site verifying the partnership?

Problem #2: Partner Portal with Bad Usability

"Huh?" That's what I first thought when I logged into Intralinks. A tab for Users and Groups? What is this thing?

Intralinks main screen for PPP applicants — The main screen on Intralinks for PPP applicants

We see systems like this in our work. The usability is often bad, but the damage they do is limited. Their users — often tech-savvy enterprise teams — get trained on workarounds and eventually figure it out with repeat usage.

But PPP was different: a process for hundreds of thousands of first-time users, many with low tech literacy.

Here's how Larry Kotlikoff, a BU economics professor and small business owner, described his experience with Intralinks in Forbes:

I immediately went to the Intralinks site, pulled together all requested documents, and then tried to upload them as the instructions said to do. Trouble was, there was no obvious way to upload. There was no visible upload button and no instructions for uploading. I went online. Other people were having the same problem. No one seemed to know how to upload the requested documents.

Here's another story, of another PhD business owner, as told by CNBC:

Concerned about the future of his firm, Shaked proceeded and filled out the forms with Intralinks. When he was finished, he noticed another problem. "There was no place to press submit," he said.

He called for his wife, Varda, a computer scientist who spent two decades developing artificial intelligence systems. She was stumped, too. Nearly three hours later, the two of them figured out how to submit the application. They needed to save the documents first and then re-upload them in another place. On its webpage about Intralinks, Bank of America explains this 10-step process.

Yes, Bank of America does provide detailed instructions on using Intralinks. Here's an excerpt:

Excerpt of Bank of America instructions for using Intralinks for PPP — Excerpt from Bank of America's user guide for Intralinks

This may seem like a useful resource, but those of us who do usability testing know that it's a red flag.

People rarely read instructions that are separate from the user interface. If you need to explain your UI with detailed instructions in a PDF, you need to rethink your UI. In the meantime, at least integrate critical instructions into the interface, as close as possible to the place where people need them.

Despite the usability challenges, we uploaded our docs within hours of the Intralinks email.

Problem #3: No Updates

Two days later, on April 10, Bank of America called to ask if we had uploaded everything to Intralinks. "Yes," I said proudly. Once again, we felt ahead of the game.

We wouldn't hear again from Bank of America for 16 days. Over this period, PPP was on the national news almost every night. Every day, we hoped to hear something, anything from the bank. Meanwhile, their site and earlier emails made this much clear: don't call us, we'll call you. Here's what the Intralinks email said:

Information about your application status will NOT be available through Bank of America's Financial Centers or Contact Centers.

We had no idea if the application was stuck in line at B of A, stuck at SBA, or already rejected.

I wondered: Wasn't there some kind of status update Bank of America could have sent during those 16 days? Even a mass email saying "We're working on it" would have helped.

Problem #4: Frustrating Error-Handling

It was now Sunday, April 26, the day before the next round of PPP. That's when the email arrived saying "We haven't received all of your loan application documents."

There was no mention of what was missing. It was a generic email with a long list of instructions and some possible things we might have missed. It was up to us to figure out the issue.

I was certain we had submitted all of the documents, but I went digging. Eventually, I found this in the email:

Upload each document as they are titled in the required document reference sheet. For example, you would upload one of the documents as "Application Addendum".

Ah ha! Issue found: following standard file-naming practice, we had added our company name to our documents, e.g. "PPP Application Addendum_4 Marketade".

An easy fix, but it begs a bunch of questions, the first one being:

Really? How can a fintech platform in 2020 not be able to accept tweaks to the file names?

And even if it can't …

Why did it take 16 days to notify us of the problem?
Why didn't the system call out this requirement up front?
Why didn't the system notify us with an error message as soon as we uploaded docs the first time?

And this: How many thousands of already-stressed people spent hours and hours struggling through this process?

David Beats Goliath

On April 29, exactly 3 weeks after we'd uploaded all of our documents the first time, we finally received an email from Bank of America titled Your application is complete. Within the email, it said "We are ready to send your request for a loan to the Small Business Administration (SBA)."

Earlier that day, I spoke to a friend who also owns a small business. He mentioned a small bank in the DC area that was accepting applications from non-customers. We applied at 8am — through a simple online application that collected all docs at once and provided clear guidance throughout the flow. It took about 30 minutes.

The confirmation email told us that someone from the bank would contact us. Someone did, within hours. And by 1pm, the rep emailed us to say that we were "all set": our application had gone through the SBA authorization process and our funds were reserved.

Today, another rep from the small bank called. They were ready to move forward with funding, and wanted to know where to send the money. After a long pause, I gave her our Bank of America account information.