FX Online, Gauravi Linjara

Case snapshot

Role

Sr. Product Designer · FX Online, Emirates NBD

Team

Team of 8, architects, 4 backend, 2 frontend, me on design

Timeline

Sept 2024, Apr 2025 · Dubai

Tools

Figma · usability testing

What I did

Owned research, the relationship-manager and trader journeys, rate negotiation, deal booking, dashboards, authentication, edge cases, and the responsive design system. The bet: show the full price, not just the headline rate.

Impact

16,265 deals booked worth 262Mn AED on the platform by May 2025; 400+ RMs and traders onboarded.

Constraints

Rates that changed continuously, quotes that expired after 90 seconds, and authority, audit & compliance requirements across two desks.

01 · Context

rates that move every 90 seconds.

At Emirates NBD, Relationship Managers and Treasury negotiate foreign-currency deals where the market rate updates every millisecond. The job was to simplify a brutally complex, time-pressured system, so RMs and Traders could agree a rate and book a deal with confidence, fast.

02 · Problem

no one trusted the rate.

A rate you couldn't trust

The headline rate and the post-margin rate were never shown together, so no one was sure what they'd actually book.

Rates that move

Quotes changed mid-negotiation, and the 90-second window could expire before the deal was confirmed.

A booked deal can't be unwound

Once an RM books, it's live in the market, but the screen gave no confident final review before commit.

Two desks, one blind spot

RM and Treasury negotiated from different views, with authority limits (DOA) surfacing only after the fact.

“

the signal · user interviews

how do I know this is the real rate?

Relationship ManagersTreasury tradersOps

Trust in the quoted rate, not features, was what made or broke a transfer.

03 · The shift

from guesswork to a clear quote.

Booking an FX deal, the core task. Before vs. after the redesign.

The bet behind it. I made price transparency the default. The safer-looking option was to show only the familiar headline rate, the number traders are used to seeing. But research revealed the hidden post-margin price was exactly what made users anxious. So I brought the market rate, margin, profit and remaining booking time into one reviewable view, the uncomfortable number, made the trustworthy one.

anxious, opaque rate-guessing→

the full quote, clear before you book.

Five steps to a rate that might already have moved, now market rate, margin and profit shown together, with a visible 90-second countdown.

04 · Process

designed for confidence.

Research the real anxieties, prototype the transparent flow, and validate it sprint by sprint.

in their own words

“By the time I confirm the rate, it's moved, and I've lost face with the client.”

Rashed A.Relationship Manager · Corporate

“I need market rate, margin and profit on one screen, or I'm booking blind.”

Lena H.Treasury Trader

“If a special rate breaches my authority, I need to know before I book, not after.”

Omar S.Senior RM · Special rates

the bet

Burying fees until checkout nudges conversion short-term. I showed rate, fee and final amount together instead, total cost upfront, because trust is the whole product.

find the real fear

Interviews showed the blocker wasn't speed, it was not trusting the rate and fearing hidden fees.

prototype the transparent quote

Designed a quote that shows rate, fee and exact amount received together, with a locked-rate countdown.

validate with real users

Usability-tested the transparent flow vs. the old one, faster transfers and far higher trust in the rate.

ship a responsive system

Delivered a responsive design system so the flow stayed consistent across mobile, tablet and desktop.

05 · Solution

the clear quote, made visible.

From the dense legacy trader terminal to one clear deal-order canvas, verify the client, see rate, margin & profit together, and book before the 90-second window closes.

before · Refinitiv terminal

after · FX Online

drag to compare ⇆

06 · The flow

the deal order, step by step.

start the trade

The RM opens a clean deal-order canvas, setup on the left, live amounts and rate on the right.

verify the client (CIF)

One tap confirms the customer and pulls their details, no re-typing what the bank already knows.

rate, margin & profit, together

Market quotes, post-margin rates and the live booking countdown, all in one confident view.

rate timed out? refresh, don't panic

When the 90-second rate expires, a clear timeout state lets the RM refresh instead of guessing.

left · details fill from the client's last deal. the RM confirms rather than re-types. · right · the market rate springs between values and counts down, so the number you book stays honest.

07 · Design decisions

guardrails on a high-stakes screen.

1Inline guardrail: a special margin beyond the RM's authority (DOA) warns immediately, before submit, not after.

2Client identity stays pinned at the top so the RM never loses context mid-negotiation.

3A live market-quotes table makes the rate logic legible instead of hidden in a back-end.

a deliberate commit: press-and-hold, a short processing beat, then unmistakable confirmation. why not one-tap? for an irreversible booking, that final beat is what prevents a costly, unrecoverable mistake.

09 · Impact

what changed, three ways.

For the RM & trader

↑ 40%

Lift in perceived task clarity, faster, more confident deal capture under the 90-second window.

For the business

↑ 262Mn

AED booked through FX Online by May 2025, across 16,265 deals.

For the org

↑ 400+

RMs & Traders on one responsive system, consistent across desk and device.

live-platform figures · reported by the business, May 2025

10 · Reflection

we made a 90-second window feel calm.

This project taught me that confidence doesn't come from removing complexity. It comes from revealing the right complexity at the moment a person must decide, giving an RM and a Trader one canvas where rate, margin and profit live together, so a deal gets booked before the rate moves.

Every choice answered a real anxiety, "did it go through?", "is this rate still good?", and turned it into something visible and reassuring.

Building it wasn't linear. It meant unlearning a dense legacy terminal, prototyping, testing with heatmaps, and reworking until attention landed exactly where the decision happens.

And the system keeps growing. New currency pairs, predictive timeouts, coaching for junior desks, the platform should stay calm and confident long after this release.

11 · Beyond the Figma file

I shipped trust, not just screens.

A responsive design system, handed to engineering so cost-clarity held across every device and future flow.

Accessible by default: AA-contrast tokens, clear focus states, and legible numerals for amounts and rates.

exchange currency without the fear.