Tangerine Bank’s secure web platform is the core entry point for millions of Canadians managing their everyday banking needs. While the bank pioneered digital-only banking in Canada, the platform had grown complex over time, with fragmented workflows, inconsistent UI patterns, and legacy infrastructure that limited the ability to launch new features quickly. To remain competitive against emerging fintech challengers and evolving customer expectations, Tangerine needed to modernize its secure web experience with a focus on simplicity, trust, and long-term scalability.
As the Senior Product Designer, I partnered closely with Product, Engineering, Security, and Compliance teams to define the strategic direction for the new platform. My role included synthesizing customer pain points, aligning stakeholders around a unified design system, and creating a cohesive end-to-end experience, from authentication and dashboard design to money movement flows, help/support touchpoints, and accessibility standards.
This case study highlights the strategic approach and design decisions I led to help Tangerine modernize its secure banking platform while ensuring security, usability, and future-focused flexibility.
Tangerine Bank faced existential threats from fintech disruptors. As a digital bank only, they were not very competitive in the whole Canadian Banking landscape. Legacy systems created competitive disadvantages threatening market position and customer retention. With a 23% customer churn rate, 40% of calls requiring support, and low conversion rates on new product offerings, Tangerine's digital experience was failing to compete with newer fintech competitors who offered faster, simpler, and more intuitive banking experiences.
Business Challenges:
User Pain Points:
I owned the end-to-end experience design for Tangerine's web banking transformation—modernizing the digital banking experience to compete with fintech disruptors. Working alongside product managers, researchers, and engineering teams, I led the design workstream from discovery through delivery, creating a faster, simpler, data-informed web experience that reduced churn, support calls, and improved conversion rates.
Tangerine's leadership recognized that the digital banking experience was not competitive with fintech disruptors, threatening market position and customer retention. The web transformation initiative aimed to modernize the banking experience and reverse declining metrics. Key business objectives included:
We benchmarked banking experiences from leading fintech disruptors (Wealthsimple, Koho, Neo Financial) and digital banks (Simplii, EQ Bank) to inform a competitive, modern banking UX. Key insights revealed that successful digital banks prioritize speed, simplicity, and self-service—enabling users to complete banking tasks quickly without support intervention. We adapted these patterns to Tangerine's banking ecosystem, creating a modernized experience that matched fintech standards while maintaining Tangerine's brand identity and regulatory compliance.
Interviews with 35 Tangerine customers and analysis of support ticket data revealed consistent patterns around banking frustration:
These insights shaped our approach: creating a faster, simpler, data-informed web experience that enables self-service and competes with fintech disruptors.
We redesigned Tangerine's web banking experience to compete with fintech disruptors, creating a faster, simpler, data-informed interface that reduces task time, enables self-service, and improves conversion rates. The new experience simplifies navigation, reorganizes information architecture, and enables users to complete banking tasks without support intervention—transforming Tangerine from a lagging digital bank into a competitive player in the Canadian banking landscape.
Redesign navigation structure to reduce task completion time by 3x. Clear, intuitive navigation enables users to find account information, complete transactions, and access features quickly—eliminating complexity that slowed users down and drove support calls.
Reorganize data and content structure to improve findability and conversion. Better information architecture enables users to discover products, understand features, and complete tasks without confusion—improving conversion rates on new product offerings.
Enable users to complete banking tasks independently without support calls. Self-service features reduce the 60% support need and 40% support call volume—allowing users to manage accounts, troubleshoot issues, and find answers without human intervention.
Leverage user data and behavior insights to personalize experiences and optimize conversion. Data-informed design enables targeted product recommendations, contextual help, and personalized interfaces—improving engagement and reducing churn by providing relevant, timely experiences.
Intelligent Financial Dashboard
To extend the value of Tangerine's web transformation beyond surface-level design, we modernized the underlying banking platform architecture, improving performance, scalability, and user experience across all banking features. The platform modernization introduced faster load times, improved responsiveness, and enhanced reliability, enabling users to complete banking tasks quickly and reliably without delays or errors.
The platform modernization introduced data-informed personalization, proactive help features, and intelligent self-service tools, helping users discover products, complete tasks, and find answers without support intervention. By combining simplified navigation, improved information architecture, and modern platform infrastructure, Tangerine's web transformation transformed from a design update into a comprehensive digital banking modernization that positioned Tangerine as competitive with fintech disruptors in the Canadian banking landscape.
The Tangerine web transformation successfully modernized the digital banking experience—successfully bridging legacy banking constraints with fintech-level usability and positioning Tangerine as competitive in the Canadian banking landscape.
Measured Outcomes:
The success of Tangerine's web transformation demonstrated that digital banks could compete with fintech disruptors — not through longer timelines, but through smarter, user-centered design that simplifies navigation, enables self-service, and improves information architecture.
Through this initiative, we learned that competing with fintech disruptors goes beyond feature parity. It requires speed, simplicity, and self-service. By aligning product, design, and engineering around a shared goal of faster, simpler banking, we reduced task time, enabled self-service, and improved conversion rates. Simplified navigation, improved information architecture, and data-informed design proved essential in turning a lagging digital bank into a competitive player in the Canadian banking landscape.
Complex navigation slows users down and drives frustration. During research, we learned that users were taking 3x longer to complete banking tasks than necessary due to navigation complexity. By redesigning the navigation structure to be clear, intuitive, and task-focused, we reduced task completion time significantly. The key was eliminating unnecessary clicks, reducing cognitive load, and enabling users to find what they needed quickly—transforming banking from a time-consuming process into a fast, efficient experience.
Poor data organization prevents users from finding products and completing tasks. We reorganized the information architecture to improve findability, discoverability, and conversion—enabling users to discover new products, understand features, and complete applications without confusion. Better information architecture improved conversion rates on new product offerings by 58%—proving that organization and structure are as important as visual design in driving business outcomes.
When users can't complete tasks independently, they call support. We designed self-service features that enabled users to manage accounts, troubleshoot issues, and find answers without human intervention—reducing support call volume from 40% to 13%. This self-service approach transformed banking from a reactive support model into a proactive, user-empowered experience—significantly reducing operational costs while improving user satisfaction. The key was making help available when needed, not requiring it for basic tasks.
Thanks to cross‑functional partners across product, research, engineering and operations.
Mentored 4 junior designers on accessibility testing and user research, perfecting their visual design craft and shaping them into confident contributors to future secure UX projects.