Afterpay - experience design

published

Translate Afterpay’s buy now, pay later strengths into money features that feel trustworthy and worth trying in a crowded everyday spend market.

Role

Design team lead
(4-designer team)

Timing

16 weeks → MVP

Impact

Propensity to try score increase

↑ 120%

A hero image showcasing Afterpay’s digital ecosystem, including marketing visuals and app interfaces, with the tagline "Get to feel good about your money."

Mission

Find an ownable way for Afterpay to enter everyday money management.

Constraints

  • Tech stack decided
  • Base build in flight
  • Exec pressure to launch
  • Marketing pressure to differentiate
  • Strong protection of the core BNPL business

Key calls

  • Launch an invite-only pilot to build trust
  • The first best customer to target
  • Prioritising launch features that boosted trust first

The situation

Before its acquisition by Block, Afterpay had its sights on banking. We joined as they were rapidly establishing a core product team, building baseline mobile-banking functions, and lining up marketing and support ahead of launch.

The tension in the ambition

The buy now, pay later market in Australia in FY20 had tripled to A$10 bn, yet it was still just 2% of all card spend. 98% of the space was still elsewhere.

Consumers loved the extra spending power; Afterpay posted an NPS of +53.6 vs the big four banks’ +2.1. But users were also taking on debt they could not absorb.

  • 1 in 5 users missed a repayment last year
  • 84% of financial counsellors now see BNPL debts in hardship cases
  • 61% say clients cut food or rent to keep accounts open

Why this matters

If Afterpay’s next act is everyday money management, it has to address these trust issues head-on. If they cannot turn financial anxiety into genuine trust, their permission to play in that space will be lost.

Our job

Open a path for Afterpay into the everyday money transaction space with an experience that can grow without exhausting the people it serves.

Framing the challenge

How do we earn permission for Afterpay to play in everyday money?

Where we started

"I probably wouldn't want to have it as my banking app to be honest... If you're in the mindset where you're trying to save for something, it's not great, it could really tap into bad habits."
27 yo concept tester, AU

Making progress

"I probably wouldn't use it instead of Up just because I've been with them for so long, but I'd use it as an extension of what I'm already using..."
25 yo concept tester, AU

The shift

“The story part is brilliant, it’s so different from conventional banking apps. It gives you assistance in context, which provides a good, positive mental aspect
33 yo concept tester, UK
"I really like it. It's more pressure on the big 4 to just not be shitty. I feel like this is really interesting with Afterpay getting involved in the banking side of things."
28 yo beta tester, AU

What moved the needle

Two things shifted perception: a relatable device that allows you to see your money, and a quick sense-check on how you were tracking.

Personalised data stories

A reels-style playback that turned your transaction history into the story of your money. It surfaced where your money flowed, recognised good behaviour, and nudged you toward the next small step.

Rapid prototypes used as testing stimuli

Colour as a quick money temp-check

A one-glance money check; warm for spending, green for income, purple for saving.

Three iPhone mock-ups of a conceptual Afterpay banking app, each greeting a user named Sulin and showing a different balance ($140 · $638 · $700) on pastel gradient dashboards, with a swipeable carousel of themed sub-accounts beneath the hero card.

These two elements became the backbone of the invite-only pilot and were central to the 120% increase in propensity to try compared to earlier, more conventional concepts.

Process breakdown

Research, focus, and hypothesis

Deep audience understanding

We explored how people relate to money, their general well-being, and their financial well-being.

Managing money looked like an ecosystem; no single institution, app, or tool rules it all. People assemble their own stacks that flex with context and ambition.

A "Value Well" diagram illustrating customer expectations in four categories: Context, Tools, Content, and Community. The visual uses stacked bars to represent trade-offs and priorities for money management behaviours.

Behaviour spectrum and first best customer

We plotted a spectrum from “avoiding money” to “highly structured and supported.” At one end, people already had solid systems; at the other, people were not ready to engage.

We focused on the middle; intrinsically motivated people who wanted to do better with money but needed more confidence and self-trust.

A behavioural spectrum diagram showing user personas across two axes: trust with money and engagement levels. Featured personas include Amy, Celine, Sulin, Latika, and Riley, positioned to represent varying levels of trust and motivation.

We captured this in a primary persona, Sulin, who had the intent but not yet the confidence or tools to feel in control.

A persona profile for Sulin, detailing her financial relationship, needs, and goals, with metrics like confidence, trust, and accountability visualised through sliders and charts.

Entry point

We mapped services against engagement and replaceability. Salary accounts were deeply entrenched. Top-up tools and side savings were easier to switch. That became the natural entry point; earn trust without asking people to uproot everything.

A chart mapping financial tools like savings accounts and BNPL along axes of replaceability (easy to hard) and engagement (low to high), with a highlighted zone for optimal utility and engagement.

Strategic positioning

Redefining the mission

Help people build a healthier relationship with money through personalised guidance, not generic rules. Balance emotional and rational needs so confidence grows with capability. We framed this as a “money-positive” mindset.

A brand proposition diagram centred on "Money Positive" with associated elements: purpose (fairness and financial freedom), mission (empowering a money-positive mindset), and territories like anti-money-shaming and personalised futures.

From out-of-app to in-app

To shift behaviour, we had to show up where people already were; in feeds, on streets, and inside the app. The same story needed to stretch from marketing to product without breaking.

A user content journey funnel displaying categories like "Show me why I should care" and "Show me what I should do," with visual examples of marketing and in-app content supporting each stage.

First 90 days and MVP

We mapped Sulin’s first three months, from first contact to early wins. That journey anchored which features, stories, and prompts made it into the MVP, and which stayed aspirational.

A timeline of Sulin's first three months with the product, illustrating phases from contextualisation to exploration, with emoji markers and actions like onboarding and goal-setting.

A lifecycle chart mapping user engagement triggers (e.g., anxiety, boredom) across phases of financial habits, from basic budgeting to long-term savings. Includes a focus on community and data-driven goals.

Designing the system

Balancing facts and feelings

Being strictly factual about money is necessary, but not enough. Too much “story” and you lose reality. We developed a framework to balance rational and emotional storytelling so people could understand their money, tell their own stories, and hear others’.

A visual representation of the flow state, mapping financial behaviours on axes of rational/concrete to emotional/aspirational, with categories such as income, outgoing expenses, investments, and accumulation.
A breakdown of financial wellness into rational and emotional dimensions, comparing factors like current financial stressors, perceived financial future, and the balance of income, spending, and saving.
A formula diagram illustrating 'Money Positivity,' combining three elements: data (personalised flow visualisation), actionable steps, and relevant content tailored to the user’s financial journey.

From framework to system

The framework became a system that made money feel more legible and less judgemental.

Key elements:

  • Visual tools that turned complex flows into simple, readable patterns.
  • Narrative moments that showed progress and surfaced stories without drifting into shame or fantasy.
  • Personalised prompts that encouraged small, repeatable behaviour changes aligned with long-term stability.

Taxonomies and visual logic

A table outlining action recommendations for user scenarios with high or low engagement in areas like saving, spending, and future planning. Includes a list of considerations for cadence and content relevance.
A taxonomy diagram categorising financial behaviours into three groups: Incoming (e.g., pay received, account balance), Outgoing (e.g., bills, social expenses, transportation), and Future Me (e.g., savings, aspirations).
A gradient-based data visualisation with three categories: incoming, outgoing, and future-me financial flows. Displays how majority flow signals are represented with distinct colours.

Delivery and expression

A visual mockup showcasing multiple devices with Afterpay-branded UI designs, including app screens, a website, and marketing materials. Tagline: "Get to feel good about your money." A progression visual comparing an existing home dashboard carousel with an MVP redesign featuring dynamic colour schemes and personalised greetings for improved user engagement.

Templates and real-world touchpoints

A grid of story templates for dynamic and static app content, showcasing personalised transaction details, spending summaries, and motivational messages tailored to user behaviour.

A set of posters in a street setting promoting Afterpay’s brand narrative, featuring taglines like "Meet Haus of Dizzy" and "The Girls that Depop'd their way to a fashion empire."

The cutting room floor

With the tech stack frozen and a pilot clock already running, we had room for exactly one differentiator. Advanced components, nice-to-have flows, and even a proper CMS for the content-led feature stayed on the cutting-room floor.

We bet the launch on the slimmest differentiator we could ship and deferred the rest. We cut back to the critical set below.

Product roadmap detailing key features, their dependencies, and timelines for a financial management tool, including flow data structure, content repository, money groupings, user experience improvements, and personalised recommendations.

What I’d change next time

We sat in the middle; too strategic for “just UX,” not high enough to shape portfolio bets. Next time, I’d make the project’s intended impact explicit from day one.

  1. Design around time to insight, not time to a mission statement.
    Treat the work as a probe that quickly surfaces what’s true in the market.

  2. Use faster market signal as the success test.
    Judge progress by how quickly we can see real shifts in trust and intent to try, not by how complete the future vision looks.

  3. Aim for a tighter story and a smaller research bill.
    Strip the scope back to what directly serves the decisions to make; fewer concepts, clearer narrative, and only the research needed to back it.

Team composition

Our team

  • Experience design lead
  • UX and UI designers
  • Strategists
  • Researchers

Afterpay’s team

  • Product managers
  • Product marketers
  • Product design teams
  • User researchers
  • Engineering teams
  • Associated teams primarily focused on the BNPL business