BCR - Digital Banking in Costa Rica
Date
2023–2024
Client
Banco de Costa Rica (BCR)
Product
Digital Banking Journeys
Role
Product Designer/ UI Designer
Context & Challenge
BCR began a multi-year digital transformation to modernize its core customer journeys. The bank historically relied on branch-based, paper-heavy processes, complex compliance validations, and legacy systems.
This created:
Weeks-long approval processes
High operational load
Low digital adoption
Fragmented internal workflows
The mandate: design a fully digital onboarding and credit experience that is compliant, transparent, and simple enough for nationwide adoption.
Role & Scope
Product Designer with a strong focus on UI, interaction design, and design system development.
Mapped and designed the bank’s end-to-end digital onboarding and credit journeys.
Responsible for:
Digital identity creation
KYC document upload + biometric validation
Credit product selection flows
Multi-channel application tracking
Web + mobile consistency
Owned the creation, maintenance, and documentation of the design system, including components, visual patterns, and design tokens for scale and engineering parity.
Procces
1. Understanding BCR’s Operational Reality
Ran workshops with legal, risk, and operations teams to map the offline onboarding + credit processes.
Documented regulatory constraints (SINPE standards, national ID requirements, income verification formats).
Identified UX and UI limitations derived from existing legacy systems and internal workflows.
2. Mapping the Friction
Identified key blockers across the existing journey:
Repeated document requests and inconsistent data capture
Branch-only approval workflows
Manual credit scoring and validation
No transparent status updates for users
Legacy systems requiring redundant inputs
3. Designing the New Digital Journeys
Designed a unified onboarding flow integrating biometric and ID validation using clear, accessible UI patterns.
Created simplified credit application flows with dynamic logic and clear interaction states.
Built a modular UI system in Figma that included reusable components, states, and responsive behaviors.
Established and maintained design tokens (spacing, color, typography, elevation, interaction states) to ensure consistency and engineering alignment.
4. Cross-Functional Collaboration
Worked directly with engineers to translate design tokens, components, and specs into implementation-ready assets.
Collaborated with Product Owners and compliance teams to ensure every flow met business rules and regulatory standards.
Partnered with the Lead Designer to scale the design system across new products and unify the visual language over the 1.5-year project.
Strategic Design Decisions
Introduced progressive disclosure to reduce cognitive load.
Replaced rigid paper forms with dynamic logic based on user context.
Designed a document upload system that met compliance while remaining simple for low-tech users.
Clarified complex internal steps (risk checks, verification stages) through a transparent UX pattern.
Outcomes
Application time reduced from >10 days to under 10 minutes (internal assessment).
Eliminated 99% of manual document processing, moving to digital validations.
Created the foundation for BCR’s digital identity and onboarding system.
Increased visibility and transparency for users, decreasing support calls.
