How to Design Exceptional Customer Experiences Without Losing Customers in the Era of New Regulations?

For years, advertisements, landing pages, onboarding journeys, consent forms, and the way offers are presented have been designed primarily to maximize conversion rates and enhance the customer experience. Today, those same elements are becoming subject to increasingly detailed legal requirements. For financial institutions, it’s about balancing two objectives: regulatory compliance and business performance. However, that doesn’t have to mean sacrificing a competitive edge. A well-planned implementation of the new regulations can become an opportunity to streamline processes, strengthen customer trust, and create a better user experience.

In this article, we outline an approach that can help organizations navigate an increasingly complex regulatory landscape without losing sight of what matters most – the customer’s perspective. By combining the expertise of a law firm with the experience of a technology company designing digital services and products for the financial sector, we demonstrate how the right UX approach can support both regulatory compliance and the creation of meaningful user experiences.

Table of Contents

• Regulatory Compliance Starts Before Implementation
• New Regulations Will Change the Language of Financial Advertising
• From Marketing Claims to Specific Disclosure Obligations
• UX Under Regulatory Scrutiny
• Prohibition of Dark Patterns in Distance Financial Services
• CCD2 and UX: Best Practices in Light of the New Regulations
• Transparency and the Right to Explanations as the Foundations of the Credit Process
• The Right to Explanations and Human Interaction
• How to Turn Compliance Into a Competitive Advantage
• Conclusion: We Already Know Enough to Start Taking Action

Regulatory Compliance Starts Before Implementation

At the heart of the upcoming changes are two European Union legal acts: the CCD2 Directive (EU 2023/2225), governing consumer credit, and Directive (EU) 2023/2673 on distance contracts for financial services. The first will apply from 20 November 2026, while the second has applied since 19 June 2026. In both cases, implementation in Polish law is taking place after the deadlines set by the EU legislator.

Such a situation increases legal uncertainty for market participants. Although an unimplemented directive generally doesn’t impose direct obligations on businesses, courts and administrative authorities are required – whenever possible – to interpret national law in a manner consistent with the directive’s objectives and provisions. In practice, it’s about interpreting existing legislation in line with EU law. As a result, businesses should already take into account the direction of upcoming EU regulatory changes, even before national implementing legislation has been adopted.

How can organizations prepare for that? It’s possible thanks to the full harmonization model adopted in both directives. That means Member States cannot – except where explicitly permitted through national options – either tighten or relax the requirements. The standard will be uniform across the European Union. The substantive content of most obligations is already known and effectively determined at the EU level, regardless of when or in what form the Polish legislator adopts the relevant national legislation. As a result, the risk that the final Polish law will introduce a standard fundamentally different from the one set out in the directives is relatively limited.

Against this backdrop, aligning with the directives’ requirements now – even before their formal implementation into national law – is neither premature nor associated with any significant legal risk. Instead, it’s an approach that allows organizations to spread the cost and effort of implementation over time. At the same time, the directives clearly identify the national options under which Member States may introduce derogations, enabling effective implementation while allowing adjustments that may become necessary at a later stage.

New Regulations Will Change the Language of Financial Advertising

If the marketing communications of financial institutions were assessed against the upcoming regulatory requirements, many of today’s advertising messages would need to be revised. Not because the industry has acted in bad faith, but because practices that until recently were considered standard market practice – such as presenting credit as a way to improve one’s financial situation, increase financial resources, or enhance quality of life – are set to be explicitly prohibited.

It’s not a hypothetical scenario but a concrete and rapidly approaching regulatory timeline. Financial institutions should begin preparing for the new requirements now rather than postponing action until the national implementation of the EU directives is complete.

From Marketing Claims to Specific Disclosure Obligations

The new regulations directly affect how credit products may be advertised – both in general marketing communications and when promoting specific products. The fundamental principle remains unchanged: advertising must be fair, clear, and not misleading. What’s new, however, is the precise definition of categories of prohibited marketing messages. Advertisements will no longer be allowed to create false expectations regarding the availability or cost of credit or the total amount payable. They will also be prohibited from presenting credit as a means of improving a consumer’s financial situation, increasing financial resources, or enhancing their standard of living.

In addition, advertisements will be required to include a clear warning – the statement “Borrowing money costs money!” (or an equivalent wording) – as an integral part of the advertising message. The directive also provides for so-called national options, allowing Member States to introduce additional restrictions, including prohibitions on advertisements that emphasize the ease or speed of obtaining credit, offer discounts conditional on taking out a loan, or promote repayment deferrals exceeding three months.

UX Under Regulatory Scrutiny

The most detailed – and at the same time the most technical – part of the new regulations concerns not the content of the message itself but the way the online contracting process is designed. The Directive on distance contracts for financial services prohibits the design, organization, and operation of online interfaces in a manner that misleads consumers, manipulates their behavior, or otherwise materially impairs their ability to make informed and freely made decisions. In practice, this introduces an explicit prohibition on the use of so-called dark patterns in the regulation of the financial services sector – design practices that rely on behavioral mechanisms to influence consumers’ decisions.

Prohibition of Dark Patterns in Distance Financial Services

The regulations identify a number of specific practices that will no longer be permitted. These include artificially highlighting one option at the expense of others, repeatedly and persistently prompting users to make a particular choice (for example, through intrusive pop-up windows), or designing the cancellation process to be more complex than the process of entering into the contract. As a result, a financial institution’s compliance will be assessed not only on the content of its communications but also on how its entire online sales journey is designed. An interface incorporating such mechanisms may expose a business to allegations of breaching consumer protection rules, along with the supervisory sanctions that may follow.

Equally important is the prohibition on assuming consumer consent – tacit approval, pre-ticked checkboxes, or a user’s inactivity cannot be treated as acceptance of a credit agreement or any ancillary service. Consent options must be worded clearly and presented in a way that distinctly separates them from the surrounding content.

Another new requirement is the obligation to allow consumers to withdraw from a contract through the same interface used to conclude it – including clearly visible buttons such as “Withdraw from the Contract Here” and “Confirm Withdrawal”, rather than requiring withdrawal exclusively by post or over the phone.

CCD2 and UX – Best Practices in Light of the New Regulations

The new CCD2 regulations reinforce the direction that UX best practices have been setting for years. Financial decisions should be made consciously, based on clear and understandable information, and free from unnecessary sales pressure. A transparent interface, clear communication, and a straightforward process are no longer just elements of a positive user experience or sources of competitive advantage – they are becoming regulatory requirements. For financial institutions, it’s an opportunity to build customer trust while simultaneously reducing legal and compliance risks.

In the future, the best credit experiences will resemble decision-support systems rather than traditional sales processes. Organizations that combine CCD2 requirements with the principles of human-centered design will achieve more than regulatory compliance – they’ll build long-term customer relationships founded on genuine trust.

Transparency and the Right to Explanations as the Foundations of the Credit Process

CCD2 also strengthens the obligation to provide consumers with the information and explanations they need to make an informed assessment of whether the credit being offered is appropriate for their needs, financial situation, and repayment capacity. The new regulations place particular emphasis on enabling sound decision-making – especially in digital channels – while preventing practices that hinder consumers’ genuine understanding of a credit product. At the same time, businesses should be prepared to demonstrate that they have properly fulfilled their disclosure and explanation obligations, as the burden of proof rests with them.

The Directive on distance contracts for financial services, in turn, grants consumers the right to request human intervention whenever a business uses online tools to fulfill its obligation to provide explanations. In justified circumstances, this right also applies after the contract has been concluded. Importantly, this right is not limited to situations involving automated decision-making. Its purpose is to ensure that consumers have a genuine opportunity to obtain clear explanations of the financial service being offered, so they can assess whether it meets their needs and financial circumstances. In practice, this means businesses can no longer design sales journeys solely around customer self-service. Wherever financial services are offered through digital channels, customers must have access to a real, readily available point of contact with a qualified employee who can provide appropriate explanations.

The Right to Explanations and Human Interaction

The new regulations strengthen consumers’ right to receive genuinely understandable explanations and to speak with a human representative whenever it’s necessary to make an informed decision.

CCD2 reinforces the obligation to provide information and explanations in a way that enables consumers to realistically assess whether the credit being offered is suitable for their needs, financial situation, and repayment capacity. The Directive on distance contracts for financial services goes even further. Whenever a business relies on online tools to provide explanations, consumers always have the right to request human intervention. Importantly, this right isn’t limited to situations involving automated decision-making. Its purpose is to ensure that every consumer using online tools has the opportunity to ask questions and receive the explanations necessary to make an informed decision about entering into a financial services contract.

From the perspective of financial institutions, this means sales journeys can no longer be designed solely around fully self-service digital experiences. Digital sales channels should provide customers with easy access to a knowledgeable employee who can offer appropriate explanations at the relevant stage of the process. In practice, this will require not only technological enhancements but also carefully designed operational processes and customer service models. This is particularly important because financial institutions bear the burden of demonstrating that they have fulfilled their obligations to provide the required explanations.

How to Turn Compliance Into a Competitive Advantage

Regulatory compliance and a positive customer experience are no longer two separate initiatives – today, they form a single, complementary strategy for building transparent and trustworthy financial services. Organizations that, over the coming months, begin treating their landing pages and onboarding journeys as the first stage of the contract – in other words, as educational and decision-support tools rather than purely conversion-focused assets – will gain more than regulatory compliance. They will build customer trust at a time when the market is already moving toward simpler user journeys, transparent pricing presented from the very first screen, and conversational communication that replaces traditional forms and complex charts with clear, easy-to-understand status updates within the application.

In practical terms, preparing for the upcoming changes should involve three parallel workstreams. First, a legal audit – a regulatory gap analysis covering not only CCD2 and the Directive on distance contracts for financial services but also related regulatory frameworks, including the Anti-Money Laundering Regulation, eIDAS 2.0, and the AI Act, all of which will begin applying within a similar timeframe. Second, a technology audit to assess whether the current systems architecture can support the required functionalities – such as an in-interface contract withdrawal button or an escalation path to a customer adviser as part of the explanation process. Third, a business and customer experience (CX) strategy focused on analyzing real customer journeys, benchmarking them against market best practices, and validating them through user research.

Conclusion – We Already Know Enough to Start Taking Action

Experience from previous regulatory changes shows that the highest costs are typically borne by organizations that implement new requirements under severe time pressure. Early preparation allows businesses to spread implementation costs over time, make better use of available resources, and avoid expensive last-minute remediation efforts.

The current period of regulatory uncertainty should be viewed not only as a challenge but also as an opportunity to streamline processes, documentation, and customer communications. Organizations that treat the upcoming regulations as part of a long-term strategic transformation can use this time to strengthen collaboration among business, technology, legal, and UX teams, ultimately building a competitive advantage grounded in operational excellence and customer trust.

The Most Expensive Decisions Are Made When Time Is Running Out. Start Preparing for the Implementation of the CCD2 Directive Today.

Gabriela Kocurek Managing Senior Associate at KWKR Law Firm

An expert in new technologies law and financial services regulation. She advises financial institutions and technology companies on digital transformation projects, with a particular focus on the regulatory requirements applicable to the financial sector.She specializes in cloud services, ICT outsourcing, IT contracts, and compliance, supporting clients in drafting and negotiating technology agreements, implementing digital solutions, and aligning their operations with regulatory requirements, including those related to outsourcing, digital operational resilience, and ICT third-party risk management.