Flexible Credit Line
Digitizing a fully offline revolving credit product into Banco Familiar's mobile app — without a backend rework, and without losing customers to confusion.
Project overview
A flexible product, trapped in an offline process.
Background. Banco Familiar sought to modernize and digitize its existing internal loan offerings, centered on a revolving credit line built for maximum flexibility: a revolving feature letting customers repay any portion of the utilized amount and reuse it immediately, plus a term loan option to draw the full line at once and repay over a fixed term. Traditionally managed entirely offline — via branch or phone — digitizing it was critical to meet modern customer expectations, increase utilization, and cut the operational cost of manual servicing.
Challenge. Bring a complex financial product into the existing mobile app while holding two constraints at once: a technical one — integrate the new, flexible logic into the current, outdated dashboard without a costly rework of the whole banking app — and a UX one — make a revolving line's mechanics (utilization, repayment, reuse) modern, appealing, and easy to understand inside a visually dated environment.
Objectives
Digitize the product — launch the revolving credit line inside the app, instantly accessible and operational 24/7.
Increase product utilization — drive higher usage through a clear, appealing, self-service digital interface.
Simplify complex logic — translate the "repay and reuse" revolving mechanism into a dashboard experience that minimizes confusion.
Modernize UX within constraints — elevate the app's overall feel despite building on an older dashboard framework.
Team
1 Product Owner
1 UX/UI Designer
4 Backend Developers
2 Mobile Developers
2 QA Analysts
My role
Sr. UX/UI Designer
End-to-end UX/UI design
User testing
Timeline
3 months
About the bank
What Banco Familiar is
Banco Familiar S.A.E.C.A. is a key player in Paraguay's financial development, evolving from its founding in 1967 as Crédito Familiar to a full-service bank in 2009. Its mission is to be the preferred bank for individuals and SMEs by offering comprehensive financial solutions — savings, credit, and services — that build long-term relationships of trust, with a focus on efficiency, honesty, and transparency.
Context
Starting point
Offline product, no self-service
Customers had to call or visit a branch for utilization, repayment, and balance checks — a massive barrier to adoption and a high manual-operation cost for the bank.
Complex logic, poor communication
The revolving logic was hard to manage offline. Customers lacked a clear mental model of their available credit and utilization, keeping usage low.
Integration into outdated UX
The old dashboard's rigid architecture forced the new product into an old design, blocking modern UX patterns.
Existing screens
Initial premise
Three constituencies, one release window.
User's perspective
Ease the understanding of the product & deliver delight.
Business
Drive higher user engagement and transactions.
Tech
Seamlessly incorporate complex animations.
Process
Close collaboration, rapid validated learning.
Our strategy for digitizing the revolving credit line was defined by close collaboration and rapid, validated learning across design, engineering, and the business.
Deep discovery & problem validation
Combined internal data analysis and user research to understand the high-friction, low-utilization problem stemming from the product being offline. This validated three issues: the self-service barrier, the lack of a clear mental model for the revolving logic, and the rigid constraints of the old dashboard.
Cross-functional design & iteration
Ran cross-functional design sprints with Engineering and Business to validate solutions against the "no backend refactoring" constraint, then moved into rapid prototyping — testing iteratively to keep the module modern and functional inside the outdated app environment.
User-driven strategy & brand integration
User interviews throughout the process surfaced a need for a friendlier, more approachable voice to demystify the product. That insight led to a key decision: bringing Banco Familiar's own mascots into the new design to guide users and make the credit line feel more approachable.
Deliverables
Product features
Revolving credit
New offer
Credit in use
Other screens
Result
Credit, without the branch queue.
The in-app credit line reached over 300K customers, with more than 37% of available credit already in use within the first week of launch — a strong early signal that the self-service experience removed the adoption barrier the offline process had created for years.