Mana
A fintech mobile app built for gamers — a debit card with daily-spending points, exclusive gaming perks, quests and financial tracking in a gaming-inspired UI. Banking that respects how its users actually live.
Banking didn't know gamers existed
Traditional banking apps treat a $9.99 subscription and a $2,000 rent payment the same way: a line in a list. For gamers — whose income often comes from streaming and prize pools, and whose spending is spread across dozens of micro-transactions — the default banking UX surfaces nothing useful.
Mana was founded to fix that. The opportunity wasn't to build another neobank; it was to build the first financial product that actually understood its user's world.
Make a banking app that doesn't feel like one
The app needed to be intuitive for young gamers despite having to handle the full complexity of checking-account functionality — transfers, card management, subscriptions, address verification, external bank linking. And it had to look the part: a visual style that fit the gaming aesthetic without sacrificing credibility as a financial tool.
Playful without being cheap. Serious without being sterile.
Mobile-first, tested with real gamers
User-tested at every step. I ran 1-on-1 tests using clickable Figma prototypes with two distinct audiences: gamers opening their first checking account, and active users post-launch. Feedback drove direct simplifications in spending tracking and how rewards surfaced — the screens you see are the result of multiple tight iteration loops.
One design system, every surface. I built the Figma system from the first week so card designs, quest layouts, perk cards and banking primitives all spoke the same visual language. It meant the junior UX/UI designer I onboarded could ship confidently, and the marketing designer I mentored could produce brand materials that looked like the app.
Cards with personality, quests as a first-class feature
Earning is a verb in Mana, not a bolt-on promotion banner. Daily-spending points, connected-account rewards, referral quests and limited-time perks all live on the home surface — because that's where the player expects progression to live.
Plan selection feels less like picking a tier and more like choosing a class: same mental model, same confidence in the decision.
Banking, but not boring
Address verification, connected bank accounts, transfer limits, identity checks — these all had to exist, and they all had to feel native to a gaming-first product. I designed banking screens that stay clean, dark-themed and low-stress, so a 19-year-old verifying their ID doesn't feel like they've been teleported into a 1990s branch office.
AI onboarding & a VR MVP
Two parallel explorations pushed the product further. I prototyped a VR app for Meta Quest as an MVP — reaching development — to give the community a shared, game-like space tied to the Mana identity. I also began designing an AI onboarding flow to replace the traditional stack of legal forms with a conversational assistant, guiding new users through disclosures in plain language.
Shipped, loved, and honest about the ending
Mana shipped to an engaged beta community that treated onboarding as a weekly drop rather than a chore. Quests drove meaningful completion rates on financial actions banking apps usually struggle with — verification, savings, external linking.
The product ultimately wound down: the cost of replacing its banking partner exceeded what the app could earn. That's a real fintech outcome, worth sharing honestly. The design learnings — about gamified finance, about testing with your actual audience, about building design systems that scale past one designer — stayed with me.