Fintech · Germany · design system
Two merging fintechs. One design system.
Dock Financial provides embedded finance for large-scale businesses. The task was to make a merger work at product level: unify two companies under a single design system, cut development time and cost, and bring the services together.
- ROLE
- Product Designer
- WHEN
- Jan 2024 – Jul 2024 · Munich
- SCOPE
- Design system · dashboards · client onboarding
- TOOLS
- Figma · shadcn · Jira · Adobe CC
/01 — the situation
Fragmented across tools and teams.
The existing workflows were spread across multiple tools and teams, creating bottlenecks that slowed delivery and inflated production expenses. A merger multiplies that problem: two of everything, and customers on both sides.
The brief was not a redesign. It was to ensure a successful merge at product level — unify two companies under one design system, reduce product development time and cost, and bring the services together.
/02 — the approach
A design system built to be used, not admired.
I designed a ready-to-use design system that cut implementation complexity sharply, automated production, and standardised the dashboards used for financial monitoring.
The measure of a system like this is not how complete the library looks. It is how much cheaper the next screen is than the last — which is why the outcome is stated in production time and cost rather than in component counts.
Client onboarding was streamlined in the same pass: the integration process for enterprise customers is part of the product, not a document handed over after signature.
Ship a system, not a style guide
One reusable system that produces screens, rather than documentation that describes them.
- CHOSE
- A ready-to-use design system driving production
- OVER
- A visual refresh applied per product after the merge
- COST
- Everything downstream is coupled to the system — it has to hold for both companies at once
/03 — one product, many brands
Brand as a parameter, not a fork.
Embedded finance means the bank stack shows up wearing somebody else’s name. The design system had to make identity a setting — colour, logo, card artwork, language — without any screen being redrawn for it.
This is where a design system stops being a convenience and becomes the product’s commercial model: every new brand is configuration, not a project.
/04 — in the hand
The cardholder never sees the console.
The other half of embedded finance is the person holding the card. That app carries a different job entirely — check a balance, freeze a card, approve a payment, find a receipt — and it has to do it under whatever brand issued the card.
Payment approval is the flow with a clock on it: the timer is not decoration, it is the authorisation window, and everything else on that screen exists to make the decision inside it.
/05 — outcome
A merger absorbed at product level.
- 75% reduction in production time
- 82% reduction in production costs
- Faster client onboarding and a clearer monitoring UX
- Simplified design system, improved scalability
[FILL] What would be done differently, and the honest failure or reversal from this project.