Title: BCR — Digital Banking in Costa Rica

Cover Image: BCR-01-cover.png

Duration: 2023–2024

Live Link: https://fabiodesigner.framer.website/project/digital-banking-costa-rica

Organization: Banco de Costa Rica (BCR)

Roles: Product Design, UI Design, Design Systems, Interaction Design

Tools: Figma

Skills tags: Product Design, UI Design, UX Design, Design Systems, Interaction Design, Prototyping

Industry: Banking, Financial Services

Banco de Costa Rica (BCR) embarked on a multi-year digital transformation to modernize its core customer journeys. The bank had relied on branch-based, paper-heavy processes with complex compliance validations and legacy systems. This created weeks-long approval processes, high operational load, low digital adoption, and fragmented internal workflows.

The goal: design a fully digital onboarding and credit experience that is compliant, transparent, and simple enough for nationwide adoption.

Product Designer focused on UI, interaction design, and design system development. I mapped and designed end-to-end digital onboarding and credit journeys, including:

Digital identity creation

KYC document upload + biometric validation

Credit product selection flows

Multi-channel application tracking

Web + mobile consistency

I owned the creation, maintenance, and documentation of the design system — components, visual patterns, and design tokens for scale and engineering parity.

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 from existing legacy systems.

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

Designed a unified onboarding flow integrating biometric and ID validation with clear, accessible UI patterns. Created simplified credit application flows with dynamic logic and clear interaction states. Built a modular UI system in Figma with reusable components, states, and responsive behaviors. Established and maintained design tokens (spacing, color, typography, elevation, interaction states).

Worked directly with engineers to translate design tokens and specs into implementation-ready assets. Collaborated with Product Owners and compliance teams on business rules and regulatory standards. Partnered with the Lead Designer to scale the design system across new products over the 1.5-year engagement.

Progressive disclosure to reduce cognitive load

Dynamic logic replacing rigid paper forms based on user context

Compliant document upload system that remained simple for low-tech users

Transparent UX patterns clarifying complex internal steps (risk checks, verification stages)

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