Tom Busath

ProtectID: Designing for Strategic Risk Reduction

Driving high-stakes platform integration and reducing identity fraud by 67% through scalable, dealer-focused experience design.

Context & Strategic Role

In early 2024, I led the design of ProtectID, an anti-fraud initiative embedded in Capital One’s Dealer Navigator platform. The mission was to reduce dealership fraud while introducing a monetized B2B tool at scale. This involved strategic planning, experience design, research synthesis, stakeholder alignment, and iterative delivery across multiple partner systems.

Business Objective

  • Reduce 1st/3rd party identity fraud at dealerships
  • Monetize existing ML fraud models ($22–$55M ARR)
  • Drive 100% application share for Capital One funding

Approach: Leading Through Complexity

I orchestrated a multi-phase approach involving cross-functional collaboration with executives, product, engineering, fraud analytics, and partner integration teams. I ran discovery across 7 dealer groups, drove workflow mapping, synthesized findings into decision frameworks, and guided the team toward an integration point aligned with data availability and minimal workflow friction.

Dealer discovery artifacts

Key Design Decisions

  • Credit app as fraud intercept point: Based on SSN access and dealer behavior models
  • One Time Link UX: Shifted from PIN entry to link-based self-verification based on usability testing
  • Escalate-to-agent: Added human review path with internal fraud ops
  • Prioritized explainability: Alerts included traceable fraud signal rationale (“show me behind the curtain”)

Design System Leverage

I aligned with Capital One’s design system for consistency but extended components to address alert prioritization, verification workflows, and real-time fraud resolution status—all reusable in future risk tooling initiatives.

Phased Execution

  1. Tested callback fraud alerts — low dealer visibility
  2. Introduced in-platform dealer messages (DealerTrack, RouteOne) — increased engagement
  3. Escalation to agent — needed SLA improvements
  4. OTL Verification — scalable, self-service flow driving 13% usage across pilot dealers
  5. Fallback flow (GovID + Selfie) — enhanced recovery, stabilized adoption
OTL experience mockup

Impact

  • 67% reduction in funding-related fraud (projected based on model performance)
  • $22M–$55M projected ARR from dealer subscriptions
  • $10M+ Net Present Value lift from new loan originations

How I Led

  • Unified product, data science, and engineering around a phased, research-led rollout
  • Drove alignment with sales and platform partners for end-to-end messaging consistency
  • Presented to executive stakeholders monthly to de-risk strategy and gain buy-in

Reflection

  • Design can reduce fraud *and* drive revenue when integrated into operational systems
  • Proactive workflows beat reactive alerts—especially in high-trust sales environments
  • Scalability requires not just code reuse, but clarity in decision moments for users
Final UI - Verify tab