PRD Template for Banking Products

Example: "Digital account opening takes an average of 12 minutes with a 34% abandonment rate at the identity verification step. Branch-dependent processes still account for 40% of routine transactions that could be self-service, costing $4.25 per branch interaction versus $0.17 for digital. Small business loan applications require 23 data points that the bank already has in existing systems, yet applicants must re-enter them manually due to siloed core banking and CRM platforms."

Example: "Primary: Reduce digital account opening time from 12 minutes to under 4 minutes with abandonment rate below 15%. Efficiency: Migrate 60% of branch-dependent transactions to digital self-service within 12 months. Risk: Maintain fraud rate below 0.02% on digitally opened accounts. Compliance: All new digital products approved by compliance committee before development begins. Revenue: Increase digital-only product adoption from 8% to 25% of customer base."

Example: "As a retail customer, I want to open a high-yield savings account entirely online in under 5 minutes so that I can start earning interest today without visiting a branch. Acceptance criteria: identity verification via document scan + selfie match completes in under 60 seconds; funding from external account via ACH initiated during onboarding; account appears in online banking immediately with provisional access while verification finalizes; if verification fails, application is saved and customer can retry or complete in-branch. As a compliance officer, I want a daily report of all digitally opened accounts with verification scores and risk flags so that I can review edge cases before they age beyond the 24-hour review window."

Example: "FR-1: All account transactions recorded as double-entry ledger postings with debit and credit legs balancing to zero. FR-2: Interest calculation uses actual/365 day count convention for savings accounts, accrued daily and posted monthly on the last business day. FR-3: ACH transfers initiated before 2:00 PM ET settle same-day; after 2:00 PM ET settle next business day. FR-4: Wire transfers require two-factor authentication plus a separate approval from a second authorized user for amounts exceeding $25,000. FR-5: Core banking API integration uses ISO 20022 message format for all payment instructions."

Example: "CR-1: BSA/AML — CIP (Customer Identification Program) verifies identity using name, date of birth, address, and government ID number before account opening. CTR filed for cash transactions exceeding $10,000 in a single day. SAR filed within 30 days of detecting suspicious activity. CR-2: Regulation E — electronic fund transfer disclosures provided before first transaction; provisional credit issued within 10 business days of reported unauthorized transfer. CR-3: TILA/Regulation Z — APR, fees, and terms disclosed in standardized format before loan origination. CR-4: FDIC insurance disclosures displayed on every deposit product page. CR-5: CRA — track and report lending activity in assessment areas to demonstrate community reinvestment."

Example: "SEC-1: Multi-factor authentication required for: login from new device, wire transfers, ACH to new payee, profile changes. SEC-2: Transaction monitoring: real-time risk scoring on all debit transactions using behavioral analytics (device, location, amount pattern, velocity). Transactions scoring above threshold require step-up authentication. SEC-3: Session management: 10-minute inactivity timeout for online banking; 5-minute timeout for mobile banking. SEC-4: API security: OAuth 2.0 with PKCE for mobile; mutual TLS for core banking integration. SEC-5: Insider access: all employee access to customer data logged with business justification; quarterly access reviews."

Example: "Customer: Digital account opening completion rate. Baseline: 66%. Target: 85%. Efficiency: Cost per transaction (digital vs branch). Baseline: $0.17 vs $4.25. Target: shift 40% of branch volume to digital. Risk: Fraud rate on digitally opened accounts. Target: below 0.02%. Compliance: Average time to file SAR after alert. Baseline: 22 days. Target: under 10 days. Revenue: Digital-only product revenue as percentage of total. Baseline: 8%. Target: 25%."

Example: "Phase 1 (Months 1-2): Requirements and compliance committee review. Milestone: Compliance approval to proceed. Phase 2 (Months 3-5): Core banking API integration and ledger implementation. Milestone: Double-entry ledger passing reconciliation tests. Phase 3 (Months 6-7): Digital account opening with KYC/CIP integration. Milestone: Identity verification achieving 95% straight-through processing. Phase 4 (Months 8-9): Security testing, penetration testing, FFIEC self-assessment. Phase 5 (Month 10): Operations training and soft launch with employee accounts. Phase 6 (Month 11): Public launch with real-time monitoring."

Example: "Risk: Compliance committee rejects product design, requiring major rework. Likelihood: Medium. Impact: High (3-month delay). Mitigation: Engage compliance from requirements phase; submit preliminary design for early feedback; assign dedicated compliance liaison to product team. Owner: Head of Product. Risk: Core banking API latency causes account opening timeout during peak periods. Likelihood: Medium. Impact: High. Mitigation: Implement async account creation with provisional access; queue and retry failed API calls; capacity test at 5x expected peak volume."

Example: "Integration 1: Core banking system (FIS/Fiserv/Jack Henry) — account management, ledger posting, interest calculation. Format: ISO 20022. Latency: under 2 seconds for balance inquiries, under 5 seconds for posting. Integration 2: Federal Reserve (FedNow/FedACH) — payment clearing and settlement. Integration 3: Plaid/MX — external account verification for funding. Integration 4: Alloy/Socure — KYC identity verification. SLA: 99.5%. Fallback: manual review queue. Integration 5: Experian/TransUnion — credit decisioning for lending products."