A structured approach to fintech product growth
Bofin was a funded fintech startup building a marketplace for financial services where users could compare and access products from multiple institutions within one mobile app. The engineering team had already grown beyond fifty developers and development was moving at a rapid pace when we joined. Several modules were already in progress including onboarding, identity verification, account aggregation and transaction initiation. The pace of delivery created the need for structured decision making and predictable UX workflows.
This project is part of our continued work in fintech UX and scaling startups, where evidence based design, design system development and product-level reasoning help high-growth organizations maintain coherence across large development teams.
We stepped in as a fintech UX consultancy that could stabilise the product environment and act as an external partner while the organisation prepared to build an internal design capability. Our engagement combined mobile app UX design, product level reasoning and a design system for fintech apps that would support development long after the initial project ended. The partnership lasted eleven months and covered multiple phases from early alignment to organisation wide workflow improvements, all guided by an evidence based UX approach suited for fintech environments.
We applied Dynamic Systems Design, a method that grows solutions through embedded experimentation, resolves tensions between local optimization and system coherence, and stewards implementation until organizations gain independence.
The startup operated in a demanding context where engineering velocity exceeded available design capacity. The technical architecture included multiple institutional integrations and compliance sensitive flows influenced by PSD2 and standard industry authentication patterns. Product leadership faced shifting requirements, evolving regulatory expectations and a growing list of modules competing for attention. In this environment our role was to bring clarity to decisions, create alignment mechanisms and support a roadmap that was being reshaped weekly. We acted as a steady counterpart to a large engineering organisation by providing UX consulting for scaling startups and reinforcing the sequencing needed for multi team coordination. Each week we consolidated inputs from product, engineering and compliance to create decision ready structures that made planning more predictable. This phase established the working rhythm that guided the rest of the collaboration.
ONZE BIJDRAGEN
Evidence-Based Research
Productstrategie
Informatie-architectuur
Interaction Architecture
Ontwerp systeem
Rapid Prototypes
Process Documentation
Capability Transfer
INITIAL MVP AND RAPID ALIGNMENT
The engagement began with a request to complete the first mobile release within two weeks, covering a minimal version of onboarding, basic account linking and simplified service discovery. Development was already ahead, so our priority was to define interaction patterns for financial services flows in parallel with ongoing implementation work through Sandbox Experiments. We introduced a lightweight prioritisation method that allowed product leaders to distinguish essential behaviours from optional enhancements. This ensured engineering received clear input and the MVP remained coherent despite incomplete requirements.
Once delivered, the startup expanded our involvement to a continuous partnership. Over the next eight weeks we sequenced the next set of modules including payment initiation, KYC expansion and document upload. Our contribution helped the team move from reactive decisions to planned releases and created the basis for UX workflows for large development teams. The early phase demonstrated immediate value by reducing uncertainty during a period of intense delivery pressure.
We zijn erg onder de indruk van hun werk, omdat ze goed begrepen wat we probeerden op te lossen.
ESTABLISHING STRUCTURE IN PRODUCT WORKFLOWS
As development widened across modules, the organisation required a more systematic way to handle requirements and design outputs. We introduced structured templates for requirements definition, decision logs that reduced mid sprint changes and planning rituals that linked product intentions with engineering constraints through tension-driven reasoning. These routines were refined every few weeks based on feedback from technical leads and product leadership. The goal was to create a predictable flow of information rather than impose rigid process.
We expanded UX depth across several priority modules, including financial product comparison and multi provider transaction confirmation, and ensured each module had a clear sequence from discovery to handoff. This approach reflected UX processes for fintech products and helped the organisation reduce uncertainty in planning. The result was a more stable operating rhythm where engineering could rely on consistent design delivery and product leadership could anticipate trade offs earlier.
DESIGN SYSTEM FOR LONG TERM GROWTH
With core modules taking shape during Concept Convergence, the team needed a unified design system that could support future releases and reduce dependency on external guidance. We consolidated patterns developed across onboarding, account aggregation, identity verification and transaction flows into a coherent asset that included components, naming rules, variant logic and interaction principles. The system was designed to work with the existing front end stack and included documentation suited for a large engineering team integrating new modules continuously.
It became the foundation for long term maintainability and supported product design for high growth teams by reducing design drift and clarifying how new features should align with established patterns. The asset also prepared the organisation for an internal team by providing material that could be adopted immediately. By the end of the engagement, Bofin had a scalable system that matched its technical ambitions and supported user experience for marketplace banking without requiring constant external oversight.
FROM REACTIVE TO PREDICTIVE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
The eleven month partnership produced a stable mobile app architecture, a comprehensive design system covering all core fintech modules, and operational workflows that reduced friction between product, design and engineering. The startup gained the ability to plan releases with confidence, onboard new engineers more quickly, and maintain visual and interaction consistency across a rapidly expanding feature set.
Engineering teams reported fewer mid-sprint clarifications and reduced rework due to clearer component definitions. Product leadership gained a shared vocabulary for discussing feature scope and trade offs. The design system became a reference that internal teams could extend as they scaled their own design capability.
The organization gained intangible resources: judgment about what matters in fintech product development at scale, shared product intuition about how marketplace banking flows should balance flexibility and compliance, and reasoning capability that allows teams to extend financial services features without fragmenting the user experience. The system can maintain competitive position by delivering coherent, predictable financial interactions across multiple institutional integrations, while competitors who prioritize speed over systematic design foundations struggle to serve users working across complex multi-provider banking environments with strict regulatory requirements.
The case demonstrates how sustained UX consulting for scaling startups can create structural stability during rapid growth, and how design systems for fintech apps can support long term product evolution while preparing organisations to build internal design capability.
RESULTATEN
Eerste MVP geleverd in twee weken
Ontwerp voor alpha geleverd in twee maanden
Naadloze overdracht in twee weken
Volledig ontwerpsysteem geleverd voor de lange termijn visie
Geen deadline gemist in 12 maanden