Cross-Border Infrastructure
for African Trade
Betaling is a B2B cross-border payments and P2P FX trading platform built for African businesses. It replaces slow, expensive, correspondent-banking-dependent FX with instant stablecurrency based settlement, multi-currency business accounts, and a corporate-to-corporate FX matching engine — giving businesses a faster, cheaper, and more transparent way to move money across Africa’s fragmented currency landscape.
I led product design across Betaling’s two core experiences, spanning discovery research, interaction design, and the visual design system used across the platform.
The problem
“Businesses struggle to complete cross-border payments because the process is fragmented across multiple platforms, making it difficult to find the right trade, understand costs and FX rates, execute payments, and track settlement in one place.”
Business Goals
My process
User Research
Our goal was to understand stakeholder operational workflows, uncover gaps within the existing FX trading process, and define how a B2B liquidity platform could better support institutional operators. We studied how businesses manage liquidity, execute currency trades, coordinate settlements, and monitor transaction flows to identify friction points and opportunities for improvement.
I learnt that many businesses need a platform that balance complex FX workflows with simplicity, provide real-time visibility, control, and confidence throughout the trading and settlement process.
Competitive Research
Building on the user research, I analyzed leading FX trading and treasury platforms to understand common trading patterns, information hierarchy, and institutional workflows. The goal was to validate stakeholder pain points, identify usability gaps in existing solutions, and uncover opportunities to create a more intuitive trading experience.
- Overwhelming interfaces: Dense layouts and excessive data made it difficult to quickly identify critical trading information.
- Complex workflows: Common tasks such as placing trades, tracking orders, and managing settlements required too many steps, slowing down execution.
- Steep learning curve: Many platforms assumed prior FX knowledge, making them difficult for new institutional users to navigate.
- Poor transaction visibility: Order status, settlement progress, and liquidity information were often fragmented across multiple screens.
Userflow
To make sure I designed the right solution from all insights I gathered from the end users. I started with mapping out the user flow.
Lo-fi wireframe
Once the user flows were finalized, I designed low-fidelity wireframes with annotations for the primary screens of both products, focusing on layout, content hierarchy, and user interactions before moving into visual design.
Evaluating usability through real user feedback
Best viewed on desktop
Following the redesign, I validated the new experience through another round of usability testing, which produced noticeably better results.
Designing clear & intuitive financial experience
Frictionless Onboarding & Verification
Instead of overwhelming users with lengthy onboarding, the experience begins with a quick email and OTP verification, followed by a guided four-step KYC/KYB process that transforms mandatory identity verification into a clear, manageable progression.
Business Impact: The simplified onboarding journey increases conversion and completion rates, reduces onboarding abandonment, and enables faster customer acquisition while improving operational efficiency and compliance management.
High-Utility Dashboard
Cross border payments
The dashboard provides users with an intuitive financial command center, reducing cognitive load through clear balance visibility, instant access to key actions, and personalized shortcuts that make everyday money management faster and easier.
Business Impact: The simplified onboarding journey increases conversion and completion rates, reduces onboarding abandonment, and enables faster customer acquisition while improving operational efficiency and compliance management.
P2P FX Marketplace
The market dashboard gives users immediate visibility into trading opportunities and critical updates, enabling faster decisions through prioritized alerts, one-click actions, and real-time market insights.
Business Impact: The streamlined trading experience reduces user friction, increases marketplace activity, and drives higher transaction volume by making it easier for users to discover liquidity, create offers, and complete trades.
Three Ways to Find Liquidity
Path A: The Order Book
The marketplace simplifies offer discovery with intuitive filters, automatic calculations, and visible trust indicators, enabling users to compare offers confidently and complete transactions with less effort.
Business Impact: The optimized marketplace increases trade conversion rates, builds user trust through transparent seller information, and drives marketplace liquidity by making it faster and easier to match buyers with the right offers.
Path B: Quick Match
The instant matching experience removes the need for manual offer hunting by automatically finding the best available options. Users can complete large transactions with confidence through aggregated liquidity, transparent pricing, and a simplified decision-making process.
Business Impact: The intelligent matching system improves transaction completion rates, increases marketplace liquidity utilization, and enables larger-value trades by combining fragmented offers into seamless opportunities, maximizing the chances of successful conversions.
Path C: Request for Liquidity (RFL)
The private request flow gives users access to deeper liquidity for large transactions by allowing them to receive competitive offers from trusted sellers, ensuring better rates and more flexibility when public marketplace options are limited.
Business Impact: The feature unlocks high-value transactions, increases marketplace volume, and strengthens liquidity by connecting buyers with qualified sellers while creating more opportunities for sellers to compete and participate.
The 3-Step "Send Money" Flow
Select Recipient
Choose a saved contact or add a new one, with clear details to prevent sending to the wrong person.
Enter Amount
Input the send or receive amount with live exchange rates, automatic currency conversion, transparent fees, and delivery estimates.
Review & Confirm
Double-check a complete summary of all transaction details before hitting send to prevent any mistakes.
“In the first 8 months of operation, Betaling onboarded 5000+ users and facilitated 15,000+ successful trade matches, establishing strong early product-market traction.”
The biggest lesson was that fintech trust across different user needs comes from simplicity visibility.
Challenges & How I navigated them
