Strands builds one product platform deployed across 50+ banks worldwide — from HSBC in the UK to NCBA in Kenya to BAC Credomatic in Central America. Every design decision had to balance specificity with flexibility: personal enough to feel like the bank's own product, systematic enough to scale across 50+ deployments. A savings feature that works for a German retail bank doesn't necessarily work for a Kenyan mobile-first bank. And yet the underlying system had to be one codebase, one component library.
I was Lead Principal Designer across four interconnected products, each with its own PO, user base, and success metrics:
A mobile-first tool helping retail banking customers understand spending, set savings goals, and build better habits — deployed inside banks' own apps, white-labeled per bank. The core insight: most PFM tools are backward-looking. I flipped this — every screen started with "what action should the user take?" rather than "what data should we show?" Each savings goal gets a personal image, a clear progress indicator, and automated micro-savings mechanics (round-ups, periodic transfers). Contextual nudges fire at behaviorally meaningful moments — when salary hits, when a milestone is reached.
The invisible intelligence layer powering all of Strands' products. Engager lets banks create, target, and track personalized financial insights delivered at exactly the right moment based on transactional behavior. My design challenge was behavioral, not visual: a notification at the wrong moment gets dismissed; one that says the wrong thing feels like spam. I designed a system where every trigger is tied to a real event ("you've received an income") rather than a calendar schedule, every message is framed around what the user can do rather than what they did wrong, and every insight leads somewhere actionable in one tap — no dead ends.
A web platform helping SMEs track business expenses, manage cash flow, and forecast financial health. Higher stakes than PFM — users are often running a business alongside managing its accounts. Progressive disclosure was critical: simple by default, detailed on demand, without ever obscuring the data that financially sophisticated users needed.
A new product line helping businesses understand and improve their Environmental, Social, and Governance score. The core problem: how do you make a complex multi-dimensional score understandable AND actionable for a small business owner who is not a sustainability expert? I designed the dashboard to break the score into three clear pillars (Environment, Social, Governance) with drill-downs, and an "How to Improve" section where every recommendation shows what to do, which pillar it improves, and by how much — turning a reporting tool into a coaching tool.
Every component across all four products had to meet four criteria: Brandable (any bank can apply their identity without breaking UX hierarchy), Localizable (works in LTR and RTL with text that expands/contracts across 20+ languages), Accessible (WCAG compliant — banking is a regulated space), and Modular (banks can enable or disable features without the interface feeling incomplete).
Designing for scale is designing for constraints. When your work functions across 50 brands, 20 languages, and multiple regulatory frameworks, you stop thinking about pixel-perfect artistry and start thinking about resilient systems. Financial products are trust products. A confusing chart or an ambiguous label doesn't just create a bad experience — it makes people nervous about their money. In finance, usability IS trust.