Payments Modernization Starts With Consumer Insight

Watch more: What’s Next in Payments

The systems behind the scenes of payments modernization are complex, and so are the teams that design and support them. For Green Dot, the force that keeps those parts aligned is not a technology layer but an insight engine that often goes unnoticed.

Green Dot operates both as a direct-to-consumer brand and as an embedded finance platform for partners. That blend of responsibilities shapes how the company serves customers with different needs and expectations. Chief Product Officer Melissa Douros said in the What’s Next in Payments series, “Unsung Heroes,” that the company’s ability to deliver strong experiences across both sides of the business depends on something fundamental.

“I really believe that this year’s unsung hero has been user feedback, and we use user feedback in customer research in everything we do,” she told PYMNTS.

Douros noted that “customer” means both Green Dot’s own users and the customers of its partners. That dual focus shapes how the company evaluates new features, prioritizes investments and identifies friction in real time.

Feedback Powers Execution and Innovation

User feedback, not infrastructure alone, has become the backbone of Green Dot’s platform strategy. Insights from research guide decisions across product design, modular capabilities and experience creation.

As demand grows for new payment types and credit-building tools, Green Dot is helping partners meet those expectations.

“We have been working with a partner on a credit builder opportunity,” Douros said, by way of example. She added that the team is exploring ways to report rent and utility payments to credit bureaus so consumers can strengthen credit standing in nontraditional ways.

The platform is designed so partners can choose the capabilities they need and expand over time. Douros described it as modular and scalable, built to support each partner’s unique requirements without bespoke engineering for every deployment.

“We make it very easy to choose a subset of our experiences and then they can grow with us,” she said. That flexibility matters as partners experiment with credit features, rewards and other offerings aligned to customer needs.

Updating the Developer Portal

Improving the developer experience became a central initiative in 2025. Douros said the company recognized that developers needed direct, organized, easily searchable information to move quickly once a deal closed.

“Our existing onboarding experience was fine, but as you probably know, ‘fine’s’ not going to cut it,” she said. The rebuilt portal organizes API documentation into more granular components and introduces an artificial intelligence (AI) search tool that helps developers find what they need without friction.

The result is a faster start for partners and a more consistent development path across use cases.

Improving Onboarding

Green Dot shortened onboarding timelines by 60 days this year by eliminating manual steps, automating setup and standardizing project plans. A key advancement was an a la carte selection tool that allows partners and Green Dot teams to align on product configurations in a single conversation. What once required weeks of back and forth now takes place in a single afternoon.

The long-term target is to onboard in 30 days. Douros said the company continues to set new benchmarks to accelerate speed while maintaining quality.

Feedback now comes from more than interviews. Green Dot is beginning to use AI to analyze digital engagement patterns, identify usability gaps and surface insights that inform new product opportunities.

“We are looking and exploring into some ways where we can use AI to gather customer data and insights,” she said. Those insights will help Green Dot proactively make recommendations and refine its roadmap.

Green Dot plans to broaden rewards offerings, expand credit access tools and explore responsible new consumer capital solutions. All capabilities will be built as platform components so partners can launch quickly and scale as needed.

As Douros put it, the organization will continue relying on the hero that has proven most valuable.

“User research and customer research … will be key to implementing everything, making sure that we’re giving customers what they need,” she said. “We’ll continue to push on that unsung hero and probably find some new ones.”