Role: Senior UX Designer, design lead for the product squad (Backbase)
Client: EastWest Bank, Philippines
Timeline: August 2022 to November 2023
Team: A core team of UX, a business analyst, a project manager and solutions architects, with 10–20 developers across back end, web, iOS and Android
Platforms: iOS, Android, web
Summary
EastWest Bank was moving to the Backbase digital banking platform, but Backbase's out-of-the-box journeys were designed for European and US customers.
I led design and pushed for local evidence over assumptions: first agreeing how much the bank needed to differentiate, then testing a localised bill payment journey with Filipino customers.
74.2 SUS score for the localised bill payment journey · 6/7 SEQ ease-of-use score · 4.6 / 4.5 App Store and Play Store ratings
Context
EastWest Bank, 11th in the Philippines by assets, had legacy systems that slowed launches and fell short of customer expectations. As the bank replaced its old apps with Backbase's platform, our team turned its requirements into user stories for four development teams.
The Challenge
Three tensions shaped every design decision.
- Designs built for another market. The journeys were designed for Europe and the US, and with no research in the region, any customisation was based on assumptions.
- Standard versus stand-out. Backbase wanted a fast, standard build. EastWest wanted customisation that would make it stand out and lift low conversion on key products.
- Shaky foundations. The design system had just moved from Sketch to Figma, its libraries were incomplete and buggy, and EastWest's APIs weren't ready.
Key Decisions
1. Agree how different the bank needed to be, before designing anything.
Rather than debate customisation screen by screen, I ran in-person workshops in Manila with EastWest stakeholders to define differentiation at three levels: proposition, process and interface. I framed the workshops to steer stakeholders towards starting with the interface, which gave customers visible improvements without reworking Backbase's processes.
During the workshops, I also ran an in-person usability test with bank staff from another department. They spoke only Tagalog, so the stakeholders joined the sessions to translate, and saw first-hand where the designs worked and where they didn't.
2. Replace assumptions with local evidence.
I proposed a two-sprint cadence: one sprint to refine and test, the next to iterate and hand off. I also connected Backbase's R&D researchers with EastWest customers, so local insight could feed the roadmap.
Bill payment was the biggest gap. Backbase's white-label journey was built for the US, where bill payment works very differently from most other markets, and a custom journey was a regulatory requirement, so we built one. With a second designer, I designed the flows for saved billers, new billers and Quick Bills, and ran a remote usability test with three EastWest customers. The sessions also settled colours and typefaces, as the bank had no digital brand guidelines.
3. Design within technical reality.
With the business analyst and solutions architect, I prioritised the roadmap around the APIs EastWest actually had, so the designs stayed buildable. I reported design system bugs to the design system team instead of quietly working around them.
4. Give the region a voice in the product.
I ran regular design critiques with designers in the region, and fed the local insights they surfaced into Backbase's global roadmaps, so APAC customers were represented in decisions made at HQ.
Outcome
The localised bill payment journey tested well with Filipino customers, and the app launched to strong ratings.
- SUS 74.2, above the industry average of 68
- SEQ 6 out of 7 for ease of use
- 4.6 on the App Store and 4.5 on Google Play after launch
With three participants in the remote test, the scores were a directional signal rather than proof. But they were the first local evidence the project had, and they gave the team confidence to keep the custom journey.
EastWest's stakeholders were most enthusiastic about the revenue-generating journeys, and Backbase's client NPS report included positive testimonials about my work.
We shared the journey with Backbase's HQ R&D to inform its roadmap. It was the first step towards a regional, federated DesignOps model for Backbase APAC, with me as the team's UX research liaison in the region.
Learnings
Localisation needs evidence, not assumptions. Even a small round of testing with local customers settled debates that stakeholder opinion couldn't.
Agree on a shared frame before debating details. The three-level model turned "standard versus custom" into a decision about where to invest first.
Treat the design system as shared infrastructure. Reporting bugs upstream cost time at first, but it fixed them for every team using the system.
Turn constraints into buy-in. The language barrier in Manila meant stakeholders had to sit in on testing. Watching real people use the designs did more to align them than any presentation could.