Akiba One – Fintech + Regulatory Compliance App Case Study
Overview
Akiba One — Simplifying Enterprise Fintech Through Workflow Automation & System Design
AkibaOne is an enterprise fintech SaaS platform built for financial institutions across Africa to automate credit decisioning, reduce fraud, and streamline compliance operations by leveraging alternative data sources such as telco activity, mobile money behavior, and digital identity signals.
I worked directly with Tebogo Mokwena, who hired me at Contra and on the Akiba Digital team for approximately six months, during which I led the rebranding and product redesign of AkibaOne.
My role focused on transforming highly complex financial workflows into a scalable, enterprise-grade user experience that felt intuitive even for non-technical operational teams.
The challenge wasn’t simply making the platform look modern. It was about reducing cognitive overload, improving trust, simplifying automation logic, and creating a system that could scale across multiple fintech workflows without losing clarity.
Project Details
ROLE
UI/UX Designer
TIMELINE
Dec 2024 – May 2025
INDUSTRY
Fintech / Enterprise SaaS
FOCUS
Design System, Workflow Automation, KYC Verification, Enterprise UX
PLATFORM
Web Application
The Problem Statement
Understanding the Problem
Designing for enterprise fintech is fundamentally different from designing a typical SaaS product.
Every workflow affects:
- Compliance,
- Financial approvals
- Fraud prevention
- Identity verification
- Operational risk
Even a small UX mistake can create confusion that impacts real financial outcomes.
The platform had three major UX problems that needed immediate attention. Designing for enterprise fintech means designing for zero margin for error. I focused on solving three distinct UX challenges:
1. Complex Financial Logic Was Difficult to Operate
The platform allowed institutions to automate operational workflows, but configuring those workflows required heavy technical understanding.
Operational teams needed to:
- Create loan approval logic
- Configure KYC checks
- Connect APIs
- Define conditions
- Automate actions
- Manage branching decisions
The issue was that many users were not developers.
They needed a visual system that allowed them to create sophisticated decision trees without touching code.
2. KYC Verification Had High User Drop-Off
Identity verification is one of the biggest points of abandonment in fintech products.
Users were struggling with:
- Passport scanning
- Unclear validation feedback
- Failed image captures
- Uncertainty during submission
The experience needed to feel fast, trustworthy, and guided without compromising compliance requirements.
3. The Platform Lacked Visual Consistency
AkibaOne had multiple modules handling dense financial data, but there was no strong visual system tying everything together.
This created:
- Inconsistent interactions
- UI fragmentation
- Slower engineering implementation
- Unnecessary usability friction
The platform needed a structured enterprise-grade design language that communicated:
- Trust,
- Intelligence
- Reliability
- Operational precision
My Approach
Before designing screens, I focused heavily on systems thinking.
For a platform this complex, jumping directly into UI design would have led to surface-level solutions that failed to address deeper usability problems.
I started by understanding:
- How financial decisions were processed
- How workflows branched
- How APIs connected
- Where users became confused
- Where operational friction occurred
This helped me design around user logic instead of purely around interface aesthetics.