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Building BforBank's Financial Product Marketplace
To become a leader in European digital banking, BforBank needed to evolve beyond traditional banking features. I designed a financial products marketplace that expanded the app’s capabilities and opened new revenue opportunities. The goal was simple: make complex financial services feel as easy and intuitive as everyday banking.
Meet BforBank: A Digital Bank Built from the Ground Up
Crédit Agricole rebuilt BforBank from scratch as part of a multi-million-euro initiative to create a next-generation digital bank. I led the design of a marketplace that connected the new native app with financial products across the Crédit Agricole Group. This marketplace became the foundation for extending users’ financial journeys and giving them access to products that support long-term financial growth.
The Product Challenge:
BforBank needed a marketplace that made complex financial products clear and made activation frictionless while operating on top of third-party providers and financial regulations.
Design for Multiple Product & User States
Create a marketplace architecture that adapts to different product types and user states — from browsing to subscribing to managing active financial products.
Unify Native and Web Journeys
Blend native app functionality with embedded web views from third-party providers while maintaining a consistent, high-quality experience across the marketplace.
Streamline the Subscription Flow
Reduce friction during product subscription by injecting verified KYC data into pre-filled forms, simplifying onboarding and accelerating activation.
Simplify Complex Financial Products
Translate financial products into clear, approachable offerings with benefits users can understand easily — increasing trust and driving adoption.
The Vision: A Financial Products Marketplace
My vision was to build a financial product hub inspired by the simplicity of an app store — a place where users could browse, understand, and activate financial products with confidence. The marketplace needed to extend BforBank’s value beyond everyday banking by making traditionally complex products accessible, transparent, and easy to manage.
My Product Design Process:
With 15+ years of experience, I work across strategy and craft. My process spans user research, interaction design, and visual design—from discovery through delivery.
The Product: UI / Visual Design
When I joined the project, the new BforBank app had no established design system. My approach was pragmatic and iterative:
- I used Apple’s native UIKit components to build functional prototypes quickly and define emerging design patterns.
- I contributed foundational components to the evolving design system, becoming a key advisor to both the design and mobile teams.
- I led the visual direction for financial product presentation as the brand identity evolved.
- I made complex financial products more engaging using custom Lottie animations tailored for the marketplace.
The final UI adopted a minimalist aesthetic that made financial information approachable. I balanced the need for clear, detailed information with a clean visual language that helped users navigate products with confidence.
UX Design: Crafting the User Experience
The marketplace was designed to help users go further with BforBank by giving them a clear path from discovery to product activation and management. I structured the experience around four key views:
- Product Catalog - A browsable catalog organized by product type (credit, insurance, savings).
- Product Details - Clear explanations of benefits and features to help users make informed decisions.
- Activity View - A dashboard offering quick visibility into active financial products: loan progress, insurance status, and upcoming payments.
- My Products - A simple overview of all active subscriptions for easy management.
The experience adapts based on user state, shifting from discovery for new users to management for those with active products. This flexibility made the marketplace feel intuitive regardless of where users were in their financial journey.
The platform was also designed for scalability, allowing new financial products to be added seamlessly as additional services from Crédit Agricole became available.
Discovery: Research & Strategy
I began by benchmarking leading banking apps across Europe to identify established interaction patterns and avoid reinventing proven solutions. From there, I led workshops with stakeholders to understand technical constraints, business goals, and the capabilities of third-party providers within the Crédit Agricole ecosystem.
These sessions helped define the core requirements for launch: user flows for product discovery and management, the boundaries between native and web components, data-sharing rules for pre-filling forms, and the minimum viable product catalog. This strategic groundwork shaped a scalable framework that could evolve as new financial products were introduced.
The Showcase:
The marketplace transformed BforBank from a basic banking app into a modern financial platform, allowing users to explore, activate, and manage products within one unified experience.
The Results:
The new BforBank app and its financial marketplace launched with strong impact, expanding the bank’s offering beyond everyday banking and driving immediate user adoption.
Customer Growth
The new app onboarded 573,000 new customers after launch
App Store Ratings
Strong ratings on the Apple App Store (4.5/5) and Google Play (4.0/5)
Faster Subscriptions
Subscription time reduced by 2 minutes through automated KYC data injection
App Downloads
The new app surpassed 500,000 downloads across iOS and Android
Transform Ideas Into Great Products
With 15+ years of experience, I help companies design and build digital products that deliver results. Ready to start your next project?