PagBank is a Brazilian digital bank with over 21 million active users and a full ecosystem of financial services.
This project took place during a major shift in the market. Just a few months after Pix was launched by the Central Bank, user behavior around transfers was already changing fast and the product needed to keep up without adding more complexity.
As Pix gained traction, users started adopting it as a faster and simpler alternative to TED. However, inside the app, both experiences still existed as separate flows.
In practice, this created a fragmented journey.
Users had to decide before starting which type of transfer to use, even if they didn’t fully understand the difference.
On top of that, new concepts introduced by Pix, like Pix keys, weren’t fully integrated into the existing experience.
This wasn’t just a UI issue, it was a mental model problem.
I worked as the UX Designer responsible for improving the transfer experience, from early discovery to validation.
Throughout the project, I was involved in:
I also played a key role connecting different teams, especially when the ideal UX solution conflicted with technical constraints.
This wasn’t just about merging two flows.
It was about reconciling two different ways of thinking about money transfers.
On one side:
On the other:
The core question became:
How do we simplify the experience without forcing users to understand all this complexity?
All while dealing with:
The main focus was clear: reduce friction and increase Pix adoption.
Key goals included:
Before jumping into solutions, I focused on understanding how people were actually using transfers.
I combined:
A few things stood out:
This shifted how we framed the problem.
Users weren’t making the wrong choice, they didn’t have enough clarity to decide.
Based on these insights, keeping two separate flows no longer made sense.
So we shifted the approach:
From there, the system would determine the best path.
It sounds simple, but it wasn’t.
This was one of the most important moments in the project.
From a UX perspective, unifying the experience made sense. But engineering raised a valid concern: Pix and TED were built on different architectures, with different rules and dependencies.
Simplifying the interface could mean increasing system complexity behind the scenes.
This created tension.
Instead of pushing for an “ideal” solution, we worked together to find a balance between:
That alignment was key to making the solution viable.
During prototyping, I intentionally avoided jumping straight into the “final” solution.
Instead, I mapped out as many scenarios as possible:
The idea was simple:
it’s better to deal with complexity early than discover gaps later.
Only after that did I start refining the experience.
With more refined prototypes, I ran remote usability tests with 7 participants.
The goal was to understand:
One insight stood out:
Removing the need to choose the transfer type significantly reduced uncertainty.
The final solution restructured the transfer experience around a simpler, more intuitive logic.
Key changes:
In practice, users no longer needed to understand how the system works to complete a transfer.
Home screens and Pix key transfer
Pix/TED transfer by branch and account
Transfer by agency and account (Institution doesn't accept Pix)
Transfer by branch and account (TED outside the operating)
Transfer by branch and account (Scheduling)
Bottom sheet variations with registered accounts
The rollout was done in phases, in close collaboration with engineering.
Within the first two months:
More than just metrics, this reflected a behavioral shift.
Simplifying the experience didn’t just reduce friction, it helped users adopt Pix more naturally.
A few key takeaways from this project:
