Cowris is a fintech ecosystem that helps individuals and businesses to move money across borders, manage payments, and access financial services through user-friendly digital experiences. Its product suite includes SendCowris for international money transfers, CowrisPay for business payments, and AjoByCowris for contribution management. As the Lead UI/UX Designer working alongside a five-person engineering team, I owned the complete design process across the ecosystem. My work spanned user research, information architecture, user flows, wireframes, high-fidelity interfaces, interactive prototypes, design systems, developer handoff, marketing assets, and product launch materials.
THE PROBLEM
Cross-border financial services involve multiple currencies, compliance requirements, identity verification, and payment regulations - all of which add complexity to the user experience. Yet users expect sending money to be as simple and transparent as any everyday digital interaction. The challenge was to simplify these experiences while maintaining consistency across multiple products, user types, and platforms, ensuring that every interaction felt smooth without sacrificing the flexibility required by the business.
THE SOLUTION
I designed end-to-end experiences across consumer, business, and internal products, covering features such as international money transfers, wallet integration, bill and tuition payments, KYC verification, transaction security, referrals, notifications, support, and currency exchange. For CowrisPay, I also designed business-specific workflows including client management, internal transfers, customer management, fees, and payment operations. Beyond customer-facing products, I designed administrative dashboards that streamlined internal operations and built reusable design systems that kept experiences consistent across web and mobile while enabling faster product development.
BEHIND THE DESIGN
My approach centered on reducing friction without reducing capability. Financial workflows naturally involve multiple steps, security checks, and regulatory requirements, but users shouldn't have to think about that complexity. By simplifying navigation, prioritizing the right information, and guiding users through each task, I aimed to make every interaction feel clear, predictable, and trustworthy. I established reusable components and a scalable design system to maintain consistency across multiple products.
THE OUTCOME
Today, SendCowris serves over 15,000 active users and has processed $100M+ in transactions, while CowrisPay is trusted by 1,000+ Canadian businesses and has processed over $100M+ in business payments. AjoByCowris has also been fully designed and is currently in development. The result was a cohesive fintech ecosystem supporting consumers, businesses, and internal operations across web and mobile.
