Zenith Mobile Banking

Start with what the customer came to do

My brief was to make everyday banking simpler on a small screen. The application serves two markets and supports individual and corporate customers, so familiar tasks needed a consistent structure even when the underlying payment route changed.

I organised the redesign around moving money, making payments, finding transactions and managing cheques. The goal was to help customers recognise the task, provide the required information and understand what happens next.

The transfer route is a product decision

The transfer entry screen distinguishes transfers to self, Zenith transfers, fund transfers, Instant Pay and GamSwitch. I designed the GamSwitch and instant-payment experiences as part of this work.

That choice happens before the form. Once the customer has chosen the relevant task, the experience can focus on accounts, amount and payment information. In the transfer-to-self journey, scheduling sits within the task so a future payment does not need an entirely different starting point.

PAPSS: cross-border payments inside a familiar journey

I co-designed PAPSS across mobile and internet banking. A cross-border payment introduces questions beyond who to pay and how much: country, bank, beneficiary verification, exchange rates, fees and authentication all affect the decision.

I brought these into a guided journey with review before authorisation and explicit feedback afterward. The design needed to retain the banking experience customers recognise while making the additional payment information visible at the point it matters.

A result screen needs to say what happened

The PAPSS result shows the payment instruction, transaction reference, notification status and a receipt action. I treated this as a distinct communication moment after submission.

The wording needs to reflect the state the system can confirm. A payment instruction being submitted is different from the recipient’s bank confirming settlement. The supplied design below shows instruction confirmation.

Cheque management belongs in mobile banking

I designed cheque management around three customer questions: how do I request one, where is my request, and what have I requested before? Those became the entry points for requesting, tracking and history.

The tracking view brings request details and status together. It gives the customer a place to return after submission, extending the experience beyond the initial form.

Small, repeated tasks deserve the same care

For airtime, the paying account, provider, amount and phone number sit within one task, with contact and beneficiary options for repeat use. For transaction history, search, filters, dates and amounts support finding the right record.

These everyday journeys draw on the same principles as the larger payment flows: clear starting points, relevant information and a visible result. The values shown in the design screens are sample content.

Reshaping the banking system for mobile

I adapted the existing banking design system’s component foundations, forms, navigation and transaction states for mobile. The bank needed to remain recognisable while the hierarchy and controls worked within the space of a phone.

Shared patterns connect transfers, payments and cheque management. I worked with engineering through implementation, and proposed and designed the corporate mobile experience alongside the individual experience.

Showing the behaviour before production

For PAPSS, I used React demonstrations to explain interaction behaviour alongside a production team working in Angular. My article below covers the decisions and collaboration behind that work. The demonstrations served as working design references; the production application followed the engineering team’s implementation direction.

Live in two markets

The shared application is live for Zenith Bank in Sierra Leone and The Gambia. The evidence in this case is the delivered scope, the supplied designs and the implementation account.

The wider banking context

Zenith Bank Plc’s 2025 annual report lists 36,730,097 customers in its Group Financial Highlights. THISDAY’s review of the bank’s 2025 disclosures reports ₦104.14 trillion in mobile-banking transaction value and ₦70.52 trillion in internet-banking transaction value. These figures describe the wider bank’s reported scale, rather than users or payments measured through the Sierra Leone and Gambia applications I designed.