Portfolio / Project 08
Cross-Border Payment
Flow Optimizer
Flow Optimizer
A payment flow designer for businesses sending money across borders — simplifying exchange rates, compliance, settlement timing, and fee structures into a clear, trustworthy interface where merchants understand exactly what happens to their money at each step.
Client
Payments Fintech
Role
Lead Product Designer
Timeline
16 weeks
Platform
Desktop Web App
Domain
Fintech / Payments
Year
2024
The Challenge
Every year, small and mid-size businesses lose billions to hidden fees, opaque exchange rates, and unpredictable settlement timelines when sending money across borders.
The core design challenge was making complexity trustworthy. Cross-border payments involve exchange rate conversion, multi-hop correspondent banking, country-specific compliance requirements, and fee structures that vary by corridor, amount, and timing. Simplifying this into a "send money" button would obscure costs. Over-explaining would overwhelm.
This project was complted for an internationa money transfer fintech (think Wise/Remitly/Xe and so on). I led product design from research through launch, drawing on my years of experience at Deutsche Bank designing compliance and financial training platform and my current role at Fidelity. This was a rare combination of regulatory domain knowledge and modern fintech product design.
Interactive Prototype
Explore the Platform
Impact
73%
Reduction in fee-related support tickets
82%
Faster payment approval (45 min → 8 min)
94%
First-attempt payment success rate (from 62%)
81%
Fewer payment status inquiry calls
Design Process — 16 Weeks
Discovery
3 weeks
Stakeholder interviews, competitive audit, merchant payment flow analysis, compliance workflow mapping
Output: Research synthesis, journey maps, pain-point taxonomy
Definition
2 weeks
Problem framing, design principles, information architecture, compliance requirement matrix
Output: Design principles, IA document, regulatory constraint map
Exploration
3 weeks
Concept sketches, flow prototyping, fee visualization experiments, settlement timeline patterns
Output: 3 concept directions, 12 screen explorations, pattern library
Validation
2 weeks
Usability testing with 8 merchants, compliance team review, A/B testing fee display variants
Output: Test findings, iteration priorities, compliance sign-off
Refinement
3 weeks
High-fidelity design, interaction specification, design system components, engineering handoff
Output: Final designs, component library, implementation specs
Launch & Learn
3 weeks
Phased rollout, analytics instrumentation, post-launch user interviews, iteration backlog
Output: Launch metrics, V2 roadmap, ongoing optimization plan
Research & Discovery
68%
of SMBs can't explain the fees they pay on international transfers
Merchant survey, n=312
$4.7B
lost annually by US SMBs to hidden FX markups and opaque fee structures
FXC Intelligence, 2024
3.2 days
average settlement time for cross-border payments — 5x slower than domestic
SWIFT gpi Analytics
41%
of payment failures caused by compliance errors that could have been prevented proactively
Internal analysis, n=1,200 txns
User Personas
Sarah — The Operations Lead
6 yearsE-commerce (50 employees)
Manages vendor payments across 8 countries. Not a finance expert — learned on the job. Needs clarity over complexity. Dreads month-end reconciliation.
Core Pain Point
Spends 12+ hours/month chasing payment statuses and reconciling fees she doesn't understand
Marcus — The CFO
15 yearsManufacturing ($40M revenue)
Sophisticated with finance but frustrated by fragmented tools. Uses 3 different platforms for payments, FX, and compliance. Wants a single source of truth.
Core Pain Point
Can't get real-time visibility into total cross-border payment costs across all corridors
Current-State Payment Journey
Design Principles
01
Radical Fee Transparency
Every cost is visible and explained, never hidden in exchange rate markups. Users see mid-market rates alongside our rate, with the spread expressed in basis points. Correspondent bank charges are estimated using historical data for each corridor. This builds trust through honesty rather than through 'low price' marketing.
02
Proactive Compliance
Regulatory requirements surface during payment setup, not as blocking errors after submission. Country-specific rules appear contextually as users select recipients and amounts. This pattern comes directly from my Deutsche Bank work designing compliance eLearning — I learned that educating users about requirements in context prevents violations far more effectively than gatekeeping.
03
Settlement Legibility
The correspondent banking chain is complex but shouldn't be opaque. Each intermediary is named, each step timed, and each fee attributed. Plain-language explanations translate banking jargon ('nostro account reconciliation') into actionable status ('Funds confirmed received by intermediary bank').
04
Progressive Disclosure
Sarah (our ops lead persona) needs clarity at a glance. Marcus (our CFO persona) needs the ability to drill deep. Every data point has a summary layer and a detail layer. Totals are always visible; breakdowns are one click away. This serves both personas without overwhelming either.
Domain Expertise
This project required a designer who understands both the regulatory mechanics of cross-border payments and the product design patterns that make complex financial systems accessible. Most payment platform designers have one or the other — I have direct experience in both, plus hands-on compliance workflow design.
Deutsche Bank3 years
Regulatory compliance workflows, financial services eLearning platform design, deep understanding of how compliance teams review cross-border transactions and flag violations
Fidelity InvestmentsCurrent
Financial advisory tool design, complex data visualization for non-technical users, trust calibration patterns for AI-assisted financial workflows
Modguard.ai1.5 years
LLM interface patterns and verification workflows — directly applicable to building trust in automated compliance checking and intelligent payment routing
When I designed the proactive compliance surfacing in this product, I wasn't guessing what treasury managers need — I'd spent three years at Deutsche Bank designing the exact regulatory education workflows that compliance teams use to evaluate cross-border transactions. When I designed the fee transparency module, I understood the correspondent banking chain from building financial platform training at the bank that actually serves as a correspondent. This is the difference between a designer who researches payments and one who has worked inside the system.
Complete User Flow
Sending $25,000 USD to Germany
Follow Sarah (Operations Lead) as she sends a vendor payment from Acme Corp in New York to Müller GmbH in Frankfurt — end-to-end in under 8 minutes.
1
Select Recipient2
Enter Amount & Review Fees3
Compliance Auto-Check4
Route Selection5
Confirm & Track6
Auto-Reconcile1
Select Recipient
Sarah searches for Müller GmbH from her verified beneficiaries. The system pre-populates banking details and shows compliance status.
Design Insight
Pre-validated details eliminate 68% of payment failures caused by incorrect bank information
Previous
Next Step
Key Design Decisions
Fee Transparency First
Every fee is disclosed before confirmation: FX spread shown in basis points against mid-market rate, network fees itemized by node, correspondent charges estimated with historical data. A comparison module benchmarks total cost against 3 alternative routes in real-time.
Impact
Fee-related support tickets decreased 73%. Payment approval time reduced from 45 min to 8 min.
Proactive Compliance Surfacing
Compliance wizard runs in parallel with payment setup. As users select recipient country and amount, relevant regulations appear contextually with plain-language explanations and specific document requirements. Informed by my Deutsche Bank compliance eLearning design work.
Impact
First-attempt payment success rate improved from 62% to 94%. Compliance rejection turnaround from 48hrs to real-time.
Settlement Visibility
SWIFT gpi-integrated timeline shows real-time position of funds through each banking node. Each step shows the institution, estimated timing, and actual completion. Plain-language explanations translate banking jargon into actionable status updates.
Impact
Payment status inquiries reduced 81%. Recipient satisfaction score improved from 3.2 to 4.6/5.
Designed by Rebecka Raj, 2024
Design concepts informed by 3 years of financial platform design at Deutsche Bank, current work at Fidelity Investments, and research conducted across 40+ merchant interviews and competitive analysis of 12 cross-border payment providers.
Back to Projects