Exploring a new remittance experience

Context

The R&D team was exploring a new B2C remittance product for people living in Portugal who regularly send money to Brazil. The goal was to understand the opportunity, identify the features that mattered most, explore potential differentiators, and shape an MVP before committing to full product development.

Business questions

Before any design work began, the R&D team needed answers to six core business questions:

• Understand the market for Portugal → Brazil remittances.
• Identify must-have features and potential unique selling propositions.
• Evaluate whether speed and instant transfers are strong differentiators.
• Understand how to increase first-time conversion.
• Evaluate the potential of donating transaction fees to charity.
• Understand where potential users could be reached.

Research approach

I worked closely with UX Researchers to prepare the interview and prototype-testing framework, then contributed to the product and design work that followed.

• In-depth interviews
• Online survey
• Desk research and market evaluation
• Competitive analysis
• Social listening
• Prototype evaluation

Who we studied

The survey focused on expatriates living in Portugal who regularly send money to Brazil. All respondents lived in Portugal and sent money to Brazil more than four times a year.

Research finding: trust comes before speed

The research showed that users wanted fast transfers, but speed alone was not enough to make a new remittance service feel trustworthy.

Must-have attributes

• Trustworthiness — 20.07%
• Transparency in the transfer process — 18.09%
• Transaction fees — 17.07%

Design principle: make every cost visible

Transparency became a core product principle. Users needed to understand the complete transaction without hunting for information or opening additional screens.

• No hidden fees
• Exact amount the recipient will receive
• Visible exchange rate
• Total amount the sender will spend
• Clear fee and cost breakdown
• Expected delivery time before and after the transaction
• Clear transfer status and notifications

Research finding: a valuable niche in weekly senders

Weekly senders represented 17% of the sample and showed a distinct behavioural pattern. They were more engaged with several potential product differentiators.

• More likely to make charitable donations
• More willing to pay for instant transfers
• More likely to consider switching because of slow transfer times
• More interested in insurance against currency fluctuations

This suggested a promising segment that could be more receptive to the product's potential USPs than the broader remittance audience.

Research finding: charity is a niche differentiator

The initial concept explored donating transaction fees to charity. Research showed that this was not a priority for most remittance users.

Rather than treating charity as the core value proposition for everyone, the opportunity was to position it as an optional differentiator for a specific donor segment.

Competitive landscape

The market included established financial services, with PayPal and Wise among the services most commonly used by respondents. Competitive research helped identify areas where the new product could create a clearer value proposition.

From research to product decisions

Users need transparency → Show fee, exchange rate, recipient amount and delivery timing without additional clicks.

Trust is the most important attribute → Design clear review, confirmation, status and notification experiences.

Instant transfers matter to specific segments → Support fast transfer scenarios without making speed the only value proposition.

Charity is valuable to a niche → Treat charity as an optional differentiator rather than a universal feature.

Prototype as a research tool

The prototype was designed not only to demonstrate the product concept, but also to help the research team evaluate whether the experience felt clear and trustworthy.

Image coming soon

Example research prompts

• What are you thinking as you fill this out?
• Is it clear what you need to do on this screen?
• What do you expect to happen after this step?
• What information would you expect to see?
• Was anything confusing or unexpected?

Branding exploration

Alongside the product experience, I contributed to exploring the visual direction and branding for the MVP. The direction was intended to communicate trust, transparency and simplicity across the brand and product interface.

Image coming soon

Outcome

The MVP exploration was paused before entering full product development. Even without a launch, the work gave the team a clearer understanding of the market, user priorities and potential product direction.

• A clearer view of the Portugal → Brazil remittance opportunity
• A validated hierarchy of user needs around trust, transparency and fees
• A clearer understanding of the weekly-sender and donor segments
• A more focused approach to the charity proposition
• A prototype for communicating and evaluating the proposed experience
• A clearer competitive position against established services

Key takeaway

Note: research metrics in this case study are based on the provided research materials. The project was paused before full product launch, so no post-launch performance metrics are claimed.