Financing model - Fee
Nubank was expanding into Mexico and the products needed to be modular, designed to work in different regulatory and cultural contexts without needing to be rebuilt from scratch. This was my first Mexican project within the team, which took care of products for both Brazil and international markets.
The project was born from a strategic change in the financing model: instead of recurring interest, perceived by Mexican users as confusing and punitive, the proposal was to migrate to a single and transparent rate when paying in installments. For the user, this meant more clarity and control over the total cost. For the business, an opportunity to increase adherence to installment plans in a competitive market.
About the project
We identified that many customers viewed interest as confusing or even punitive. The solution was to propose a change to a simpler, more transparent, flat-rate model. The challenge was to translate this charge into a clear, competitive, and scalable experience that could be applied across different purchasing contexts without losing user trust.
Challenges
I worked as a Product Designer responsible for transforming the new fee-based financing model into a clear and engaging customer experience. I contributed to exploratory research and benchmark analysis, helping identify user expectations and behaviors regarding the flat-fee model. Additionally, I mapped user journeys, explored visual solutions, and developed the first version of the interface in collaboration with PMs and stakeholders, ensuring consistency and strategic alignment.
My role
Improve installment plans, helping to transform the interest installment model into a single fee, ensuring customers have a clear understanding of the costs before signing up.
Opportunity
Transforming the recurring interest installment model into a single fee, ensuring customers clearly understand the costs before signing up, and that this experience works consistently across different purchasing contexts and markets.
The main challenge was not just simplifying billing, it was translating this change into an experience that conveyed trust in a market where users already had a relationship of distrust with interest. Any ambiguity in the flow could reinforce exactly the perception we wanted to eliminate. Additionally, the solution needed to be modular enough to be scalable to other markets without losing consistency.
Opportunity
Challenges
My role
I joined this project shortly after joining the international team, taking on the responsibility of transforming the new fee model into a clear and reliable experience for the Mexican user. I conducted exploratory research and competitive benchmarking, mapped the user journey and developed the first wireframes and interface prototypes, all presented and validated with the complete squad, including PM, engineering, BA, risk team, compliance and designers from other teams in a critique session.
Project Process
Deliverables of this phase
This phase of the project aimed to structure the problem and prepare the solution for validation with users. The deliverables produced were:
Competitive benchmarking of Mexican fintechs documented and presented to the squad
Mapping the current journey with friction points and opportunities identified
Wireframes and prototypes of the first version of the interface, validated with PM, engineering, BA, risk and compliance
Hypotheses prioritized for the next phase of user research
Research and Discovery
I started with an in-depth benchmarking of how banks and fintechs in Mexico present fees and installment models in the user experience. The objective was to identify market standards, best practices and risks to avoid, especially in relation to the perception of transparency and trust. The result became structured documentation presented to the complete squad: PM, engineering, BA and designers.
Journey Mapping
Based on the research findings, I mapped the current user journey to identify where introducing the fee would create points of friction and where there would be opportunities. This mapping was presented together with the benchmarking for the team, generating hypotheses and guiding discussions about what the ideal experience should be.
Wireframe and Prototyping
With the problem and opportunities mapped, I developed the first wireframes and prototypes of the interface, structuring how the rate would appear in the flow in a clear and unambiguous way. The wireframes were validated in a critique session with PM, engineering, BA, risk team, compliance and designers from other teams, ensuring technical, regulatory and experience consistency before moving forward.
Handover e continuidade
After completing the discovery phase, benchmarking, journey mapping and validated wireframes, I transitioned to another team within Nubank. Before leaving, I carried out the complete handover of the project to another designer, ensuring that the entire context, deliverables and decisions made up to that point were documented and accessible for the continuity of the work.
Collaboration and Agile Development
Throughout the entire process we worked in sprints, with constant collaboration between design, product, engineering, BA, risk and compliance. This structure ensured alignment between design decisions and the technical and regulatory restrictions of the Mexican market.
What I learned
This project taught me that design for international expansion isn't just about translating an interfac, it's about understanding that the user's emotional relationship with money changes from market to market. In Mexico, the word "fee" carried a different connotation than it does in Brazil, and this needed to be reflected not only in the text, but in the order and weight of each information in the flow.
It was also my first project with formal risk and compliance validation before moving forward, a layer of constraint that forced me to defend every design decision with clarity and business logic.