Foreign User Research: Why Did Canadian User B Fail Toss Authentication

Starting from the problem awareness that foreigners find Korea's financial system complex and hard to understand, the Toss User Research team directly investigated the causes of sign-up and authentication drop-off among foreign users.

Initially, they set up hypotheses around factors like Alien Registration Cards, mismatched carrier information, and 1-won verification, and to specifically check the financial life of blue-collar foreigners who lack information, they personally visited industrial complexes and multicultural centers. Street interviews at Sihwa Industrial Complex were not easy, but they learned that a more casual approach worked better, and afterward at a multicultural center in Pocheon, they were able to meet foreigners of various nationalities and lengths of stay.

The biggest hurdle was identity verification and name input. Because the order of first and last names, spacing, and registered name formats differed across banks, carriers, and Alien Registration Cards, foreign users had to experiment on their own to figure out what the correct answer was, and one user said they had not succeeded in online authentication for 8 years. The reasons for failure were also not clearly communicated, so as errors accumulated, users repeatedly found themselves unable to proceed any further.

The next obstacle was address input. In situations where typing in Korean was difficult, even searching by postal code or English address surfaced too many candidates, making it hard to find the desired address, and some users ultimately dropped off mid-process. In the end, even when the app's features were sufficient, users got stuck at the starting stage and had no choice but to visit offline branches, and Toss presented a direction to continue lowering broader financial barriers going forward, including for users unfamiliar with digital finance.