When El Salvador made Bitcoin legal tender, Bancoagrícola — the country's largest bank — had to ship it. We ran institutional client research and redesigned payment flows across loan payments and transfers, adding QR code payments and real-time USD equivalent display for users who had never touched crypto.
The Context
In September 2021, El Salvador became the first country in the world to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Every financial institution in the country — including Bancoagrícola — was legally required to support Bitcoin transactions across their entire product. For a bank with millions of customers and institutional clients managing business accounts, this meant redesigning core financial flows from scratch, fast.
I joined as UX/UI Designer during the implementation phase. My work covered two connected streams: institutional client research to understand what corporate clients actually needed from Bitcoin, and the redesign of payment flows across loan payments and wire transfers — adding QR code payment initiation and real-time USD equivalent display throughout.
The Research
The research started with one question: what do institutional clients — businesses, merchants, corporate account holders — actually need to feel confident using Bitcoin? The answers weren't about features. They were about risk, record-keeping, and understanding value.
Three needs came up in every interview: a clear audit trail for every Bitcoin transaction for tax and compliance purposes, real-time USD equivalent so volatility felt invisible and amounts always made sense, and a faster payment initiation method that didn't require manually copying a wallet address. That last insight directly drove the QR code payment feature — scan to pay, no strings of characters, no room for error.
The Design
The core payment flows — loan payments and wire transfers — were redesigned with two new capabilities woven throughout. QR code scanning replaced manual wallet address entry entirely: a user paying a loan or initiating a transfer could scan a code instead of copying a 34-character string. The risk of human error dropped to near zero.
USD equivalent was shown in real time on every screen where a Bitcoin amount appeared. Sending 0.0023 BTC means nothing to someone used to thinking in dollars. Seeing "0.0023 BTC — $47.50 USD" makes the transaction legible. For loan payments specifically, where the amount had to match exactly, this was essential — users could verify their payment in the currency they trusted before confirming in the currency they were required to use.
For irreversibility I designed a confirmation step with plain, specific language: exactly who was receiving, exactly how much in both currencies, and a clear statement that this could not be undone. That friction was intentional — it had to feel weighty without feeling frightening.
The Outcome
The payment flows launched with the national Bitcoin rollout. Most users completed loan payments and transfers without support — in a context where the underlying technology was genuinely unfamiliar and the stakes were real money. The institutional research findings directly shaped the QR and USD equivalent features that made business adoption viable.
What I took away
I'm open to senior and lead product design roles. Let's see if we're a good fit.