SuperFi
TLDR: Designed a rewards system to boost customer engagement
Role:
UX design, UI design, research, animation, strategy
Introduction
This project focused on improving customer engagement and retention for SuperFi, a fintech app aimed at helping people avoid problem debt. The platform was initially built around debt prevention, but struggled to connect with users. The redesigned solution repositions SuperFi as a rewards-driven product that helps users build better financial habits. Its target audience includes financially vulnerable individuals looking for tools that offer support, not shame.
Target customer
Strugglers are individuals who are currently facing financial pressure—often living paycheque to paycheque—and are seeking practical ways to improve their situation. With around 23 million people in the UK struggling financially, this is a large and highly relevant segment. Strugglers are motivated to reduce their fixed outgoings and increase their income but often feel overwhelmed, disengaged, or unsure where to start. Their goal is to move up the financial resilience ladder by becoming Builders—individuals who are actively managing their finances and starting to build positive habits. Strugglers are also conscious of avoiding a slip into becoming Debtors, where outgoings regularly exceed income. They respond well to positive reinforcement, simple tools, and rewards that help them take small, confidence-building steps towards greater control over their money.
The problem
Despite its mission, SuperFi suffered from low engagement (only 15% MAU), high churn (95% within two weeks), and declining revenue. The existing product experience was negatively framed, making users feel anxious rather than empowered. As a result, users disengaged entirely—creating challenges not only for SuperFi but also for its partners, who relied on the app to ensure bill payments.
Current product
The current product focussed around upcoming bills, outstanding debts and accumulated balances.
Key challenges
-Low user engagement with personal finances and bills
-High early churn
-Risk of partner revenue dropping
Goal
North Star - Increase customer retention to 25% MAU from under 5%
My role
I led the cross functional team focussed on the Pirate Metrics Revenue & Retention. Covering the responsibilities of Product Designer, Product Manager and User Researcher. I followed the Double Diamond design process [Define, Design, Develop, Deliver] and worked alongside developers, a mid designer and a QA engineer
Research
I began reaching out to customers to understand what went wrong, what initially motivated them to sign up, and ultimately, what led them to churn. As expected, response rates were low, but the goal was to uncover deeper behavioural insights. My research focused on questions such as why customers were reluctant to engage with their finances and why they avoided dealing with their bills. In parallel, I conducted a series of moderated interviews where participants were asked to sign up while thinking aloud, allowing me to observe usability challenges and points of confusion in real time. I also carried out a full UX audit of the customer journey and the app itself to identify friction points and usability issues that could be contributing to drop-off and disengagement.
Myself and the product designer ran moderated and unmoderated usability studies
Surveys capturing both attitudinal and behavioural feedback.
Research outcomes
The UX audit and customer interviews revealed that our messaging relied too heavily on negative positioning. Many users were put off by being framed as at risk of falling into debt, or by logging into SuperFi only to be confronted with high debt levels—it created a sense of shame rather than support. In response, we launched a second round of research focused on repositioning SuperFi with a more positive and empowering tone. This phase aimed to explore how we could motivate users through rewards and encouragement, rather than fear or guilt. Our new research goals included understanding what would prompt customers to engage with their finances, whether rewards could drive this engagement, what types of rewards would be most effective (short-term vs. long-term), and how competitors like Cred and Fold were using incentives to influence behaviour.
The solution
To reverse disengagement and support users proactively, the team launched a rewards system that positively reinforced good financial behaviour. Instead of focusing on debt tracking, users would earn coins for on-time bill payments and could redeem these coins for vouchers at well-known retailers. This gamified approach reframed bill management as an empowering and rewarding process.
-Increase 30-day retention by at least 10%
-Provide tangible rewards for positive financial actions
-Rebrand SuperFi as a supportive financial companion
Redesign Ideation
At this stage, the product designer and I began the ideation process, mapping out the proposed customer journey. The core idea was to use open banking data to identify a user’s bills, track them month by month, and reward timely payments with coins. These coins could then be used as part of a wider incentive system. By introducing a gamified coin layer, we also created opportunities to encourage other in-app behaviours, such as connecting a bank account or exploring additional features. To ensure the concept was technically feasible, I collaborated closely with our backend engineer to validate the approach and identify any limitations.
Visual design
As we had common design components, mocking up a high-fidelity design helped us to understand the
Final design
We introduced a number of new elements to the final design.
One key element was a bill monitoring system, this would highlight if a customers bill was overdue, on track to pay, or could be reduced.
All these elements would encourage customers to connect their bank accounts, so they would get the benefit of the bill monitoring. Customers would also be notified if they paid a bill on time that they'd earned a reward.
The reward page was a new tab entirely. this went through a number of different iterations via feedback loops as we wanted to ensure customers understood how to redeem rewards, how any cashback rewards were issued, and to discover the vast array of cashback offers provided by SuperFi, ensuring they retained.
Testing
We waited until this point to test a prototype, as we had a real disparity between attitudinal vs behavioural feedback during user tests so we wanted to get as close to the real thing as possible when gathering feedback.
We ran moderated and unmoderated studies.
Feedback from these studies led to some further improvements.
Customers we showed the initial designs to didn't fully understand the 'coin' gamification element we'd introduced so we improved the clarify of this on the relevant tabs.
Customers mentioned there was a lot of content on the homepage, with the customer prompted to take various actions, they also mentioned the blue tiles were a little 'basic' when compared to the wider design. We actioned this by introducing micro interactions to the 'suggested for you cards'.
Prepping for development
After designs had been tested, I cleaned up the design file, prepped them for development in Notion and briefed our development team. The FE & BE developer had been involved in various iteration sessions so were familiar with the flow, and designs.
Launch & Metrics
We launched with a new partner and the difference between the initial version was immedietly apparent. Customers were logging in daily, to see if there were new discounts available, and had a refreshed motivation to ensure their bills were paid on time.
Our super users were opening the app daily, everyday, for between 30s-1 min each day. Our top customer spent 2.5 hours in the app in their first month.
Evaluation
Cashback competitors
While engagement increased, we found ourselves competing in a different market, the cashback market. This meant the % cashback we provided for each retailer came into focus as customers were saying “I can get a better rate with a competitor."
Different customer appeal
Initially designed for customers struggling financially, we suddenly found our customer base expanded into those who were already paying their bills on time, and just wanted to be rewarded, taking the focus away from bill support and into simply rewards.