SafeExchange – an internal operational toolkit for a global financial institution.

The platform supports all stages of handling confidential financial data — from creation to approval and client signature.

Role

Lead UI/UX Designer

Platform

Web platform

Industry

Finance

Duration

2 years

As Lead Senior UI/UX Designer, I led the creation of SafeExchange, an internal product developed for one of the world’s largest financial institutions. Designed for secure financial document exchange, electronic signatures, and contract negotiations, the solution met rigorous standards for security and efficiency, with a user-centred approach at its core.

Business Objectives

This project was entirely driven by business needs, with each requirement and solution aimed at addressing specific operational challenges. Design decisions were guided by close collaboration with stakeholders, ensuring every feature aligned with the organization’s goals and delivered clear business value. Some of these requirements included:

Eliminate the risk of sending confidential financial information to the wrong recipient.
Develop internal tools to replace third-party products that failed to cover all required use cases.
Establish a closed internal ecosystem of tools to ensure seamless operation across departments at all stages of client interaction
Ensure compatibility of the new tool with the organization’s existing ecosystem.

UX Design Approach

Develop an intuitive solution that leverages employees’ existing knowledge and allows for seamless adoption with minimal onboarding.

Constraints to be considered:

An existing, active user base with established habits.
Minimal training time, given employees' daily workloads.
The tool should prioritize intuitiveness over rote learning.
Quality and usability requirements comparable to established market leaders (Microsoft, DocuSign, etc.).

To validate ideas as quickly as possible, we conducted continuous user interviews, during which we tested various scenarios using clickable prototypes, identified gaps in our flow, and assessed the overall intuitiveness of the design.

As Lead Senior UI/UX Designer, I led the creation of SafeExchange, an internal product developed for one of the world’s largest financial institutions. Designed for secure financial document exchange, electronic signatures, and contract negotiations, the solution met rigorous standards for security and efficiency, with a user-centred approach at its core.

Business Objectives

Eliminate the risk of sending confidential financial information to the wrong recipient.
Develop internal tools to replace third-party products that failed to cover all required use cases.
Establish a closed internal ecosystem of tools to ensure seamless operation across departments at all stages of client interaction
Ensure compatibility of the new tool with the organization’s existing ecosystem.

UX Design Approach

Develop an intuitive solution that leverages employees’ existing knowledge and allows for seamless adoption with minimal onboarding.

Constraints to be considered:

An existing, active user base with established habits.
Minimal training time, given employees' daily workloads.
The tool should prioritize intuitiveness over rote learning.
Quality and usability requirements comparable to established market leaders (Microsoft, DocuSign, etc.).

UI Design Approach

As part of this project, I was responsible for designing and maintaining a comprehensive library of custom UI components and icons to support a complex, modular platform.

The product consisted of multiple interconnected yet independently functioning modules, each of which had to maintain a consistent visual language and interaction patterns to ensure a seamless user experience when switching between modules.

Key highlights of my work:

Created 70+ custom icons, designed to match the product’s visual identity and improve usability.
Developed dozens of UI components, covering every possible interaction state: hover, focus, disabled, error, and loading.
Established a unified component system that ensured visual consistency across independent modules while preserving flexibility for future scaling.
Focused on designing a responsive and performant interface, considering API request delays and asynchronous operations, with appropriate loading indicators and interaction feedback.
Made sure the interface was intuitive and approachable for users by leveraging familiar interaction patterns and aligning with users' existing mental models.
Worked closely with development and product teams to integrate the components smoothly and maintain a scalable design system.An additional challenge was the need to continuously adapt to new market opportunities and feature ideas identified by the project’s founders. As the online advertising landscape evolved, the team frequently introduced new functionalities and capabilities that had to be seamlessly integrated into the existing system.

This structured and scalable approach helped deliver a cohesive, user-friendly experience across a technically complex, modular product.

Results

The product launch delivered outstanding results, with strong adoption and positive feedback from users. Its intuitive design and ease of use were frequently highlighted, confirming the effectiveness of our user-centered approach. The success of this launch underscored the value of thorough planning, iterative design, and close collaboration with cross-functional teams.

3500+ completed tasks of varying complexity in the project.
5 departments completed basic onboarding and began using the product on a daily basis.
40+ automated templates for standard contracts have been added to the system for cross-departmental use.
200+ documents generated and securely sent with a request for electronic signatures.
97% of users started working with the product without the need for initial onboarding.

This project stood out for its high level of complexity and rapidly evolving requirements. A key advantage was the ability to engage directly with end-users throughout the development of each product module. Regular feedback sessions and ongoing consultations enabled us to quickly validate design decisions, optimize user flows, and maintain an efficient, user-centered development process.

Results

3500+ completed tasks of varying complexity in the project.
5 departments completed basic onboarding and began using the product on a daily basis.
40+ automated templates for standard contracts have been added to the system for cross-departmental use.
200+ documents generated and securely sent with a request for electronic signatures.
97% of users started working with the product without the need for initial onboarding.