Lucas Paraizo

Corporate Actions Event Workflow Redesign

Events, Corporate Actions at SmartStream

Corporate actions are time-sensitive, high-risk workflows that banks and custodians process every day: dividends, maturities, repurchase offers and elections, often hundreds at once, each with deadlines to track, positions to reconcile, claims to manage and counterparties to chase. As the sole designer, I redesigned how SmartStream's operators monitor and process them.

Problem

The legacy workflow had grown organically and was optimised for data density rather than decisions. Side-scrolling grids hid deadlines and status, navigation was fragmented across event details, statuses and filters, and operators relied on manual filtering to find what needed action. Managers had no view of event state without drilling into each one.

Approach

I ran SmartStream's first structured user research: interviews, observation and usability testing with six client organisations. The finding that reframed the work was that the problem was not missing features but missing prioritisation. Operators wanted immediate visibility of status and deadlines over advanced search, hierarchies they could scan, and pre-filtered workflows rather than configurable filters.

• Replaced side-scrolling grids with an expandable hierarchy of accounts, positions and balances
• Unified navigation, filtering and status in one persistent sidebar organised by lifecycle stage
• Surfaced deadlines, risk and progress in a single event banner
• Replaced free-text notes, which operators skipped under time pressure, with AI-assisted comment suggestions

Outcome

High-fidelity prototypes were tested with the same six clients before build, which caught structural problems early and avoided an estimated £50,000 of development rework. Operators identify priorities faster and with fewer errors, and managers get oversight without drilling into details.

The full case study walks through the research findings, the annotated before-and-after screens and each design decision. It is password protected because it shows client software.