Credit, insurance and POS for people with no prior digital banking history.
2021 – 2023 · Role: Head of Design · Alerzo · B2B retail and fintech for 100,000+ merchants across Nigeria · Team: Cross-functional product and engineering team · Scope: Credit, insurance and POS surfaces, plus the shared design system
Context
Alerzo is a B2B retail and fintech platform serving more than 100,000 informal-economy merchants across Nigeria. AlerzoPay is its financial layer, alongside AlerzoShop (B2B retail) and Veedez (SMB tools).
AlerzoPay is built for the backbone of Nigeria: MSMEs and informal traders. It equips micro-businesses with credit, insurance and payments so they can grow from “survival” to “sustainability”.
Challenge
Design credit, insurance and POS surfaces for merchants who had never used digital banking, where an unclear statement or a missed confirmation costs real money and trust.
Nigeria has more than 198 million mobile users, yet financial inclusion has stagnated.
High transaction costs and strict documentation requirements put traditional accounts out of reach for many MSMEs.
Cash dominates, which leaves merchants exposed to theft. A merchant named Mama Femi told us, “Dem area boys don rob me before o. I no wan experience am again.”
Without digital visibility, these businesses can’t build the credit history they need for loans.
Discovery
I ran 22 shop-along sessions and ledger audits with micro-merchants in Ibadan and Lagos markets.
I interviewed a range of personas, from tech-savvy Gen Z professionals to traditional market traders like Mama Femi.
McKinsey research showed that 57% of customers cite access and convenience as the biggest driver of fintech adoption, far ahead of price. People didn’t just want banking, they wanted agency. That led to a three-anchor strategy: financial inclusion, mobile app penetration and banking accessibility.
Approach
Modular over one-size-fits-all — Early designs followed a rigid banking layout. I replaced it with a modular UI, drafting every screen on paper first so the digital wireframes answered specific pain points.
Let people choose their home — Features like “Rearrange your homescreen” and “Choose your top 3 navigations” let one merchant put Scan to Pay first and another put Bills or Savings.
Craft
Clear where mistakes cost money — Led design for credit, insurance and POS surfaces, working with risk and compliance on statement clarity, confirmation states and dispute flows.
One system, half the build time — A modular design system shared across three products cut new-screen build time by roughly half.
Code the front end could adopt — Built coded component primitives and motion patterns that the front-end team adopted as the live source of truth for the design system.
An inclusive visual language — For varying literacy levels, 3D iconography like the “Shine” star signals success and growth.
Agency banking — A POS-integrated flow that lets retailers accept card and contactless payments directly from their shop.
Result
Retailers reported that the POS terminal and mobile payments meant they no longer had to carry dangerous amounts of cash. AlerzoPay became the main financial product across Alerzo.
Impact
100K+ — Merchants on the platform
~50% — Faster new-screen builds
60M+ — Unbanked Nigerian adults in the market it set out to reach
22 — Shop-along sessions and ledger audits
Reflection
Designing for financial inclusion takes radical empathy for the unbanked. The best fintech does not just digitise transactions, it dignifies the people making them.
Tools
Figma
Field research
Design systems
Prototyping in code
From the process
Paper sketches of the payment screens.
Merchant research in a market.
A whiteboard session mapping sign-up, security, passcode and PIN, and profile.
I’m , a Senior Product Designer and Design Engineer. Ten years across fintech, healthtech, commerce and logistics, from user research to production code.
I studied graphic design, led a product design team at Alerzo, and now design and build private capital software at DealStack.
My best ideas come from where products are actually used: market stalls in Lagos and Ibadan, a fund administrator’s spreadsheets, a bank’s support queue. I turn what I find there into clear, calm systems.
Then I help build them. At DealStack I coded about 90% of our design system in React, so what ships is what was designed.
User research
Interviews, field studies, usability and tree testing. I learn from what people do, not only what they say, and turn it into product decisions.
User interviews · Usability testing · Field research · Journey mapping · Analytics
Product design and systems
End-to-end product design for complex B2B and fintech software: clear flows, sound information architecture and design systems that scale.
Interaction design · Information architecture · Design systems · Prototyping · Accessibility (WCAG 2.1)
Design engineering
I prototype and build in React and TypeScript, so designs are tested against real data and what ships matches what was designed.
Recommendations from my LinkedIn profile, from a manager, a fellow designer and the marketers I’ve shipped with.
“Ayodeji’s commitment to excellence is evident in every project he undertakes. He consistently delivers high-quality designs that exceed expectations, making him an invaluable team member.”
“Working alongside Ayo was truly inspiring. His leadership in product design, coupled with his ability to bridge design and engineering, elevates the entire team’s output.”
AAAbdul-Lateef AkinyemiSenior Product Designer
“Ayodeji is an exceptional team player who brings creativity and strategic thinking to every collaboration. His ability to translate complex problems into elegant solutions is remarkable.”
“Ayo is a creative mind who consistently pushes boundaries. His design work is not just visually stunning but strategically sound, always keeping the end user in focus.”
POPromise OsigweMarketing Communications
Beyond the day job.
Mentoring, speaking, and a few companies and products of my own.
Speaking
Tech Rise Africa, to 1,000 people. DSGN Discussions, to 400+. On design leadership, product systems and creative practice.
Companies I’ve founded, and products I build in my own time.
Empocreat (The EOC) builds digital products, brands and experiences with clarity and purpose. I founded it in 2016 and have directed creative strategy for 20+ brand and product projects across fintech, education, consumer tech and e-commerce.
MoveMoni compares exchange rates and fees across international money-transfer providers in real time, so people can see who is cheapest for their route before they send. Users save 3–5% on average on international transfers.
Clariti is a personal finance companion that helps people track spending, budget smarter and take control of their money in one simple app. It started inside MoveMoni and now stands on its own.
A free, educational world map built on the Equal Earth projection. It folds into a globe, shows what Mercator distorts, and lets you compare countries at their real size. Made for classrooms first, after the UN General Assembly voted in September 2026 to encourage equal-area maps.
Cleap turns a product’s code, database, infrastructure and integrations into one live, zoomable map, so people who build products without reading code can still see how everything fits together.
An open benchmark for one question: given a piece of code, how good is a plain-English description of it? Labels are scored on accuracy, specificity and whether someone who can’t read code would actually understand them. It grew out of Cleap and is at the scaffold stage: a seed set of samples and the scoring pipeline, with real model runs still to come.
Paper sketches of the payment screens.
Merchant research in a market.
A whiteboard session mapping sign-up, security, passcode and PIN, and profile.
