The challenge
Bigbank was preparing to launch its first mobile banking application. The commercial ambition was clear: get a useful product into customers' hands quickly. But the initial scope was still open, design was at an early stage, and the engineering team was preparing to start development. The challenge was to turn a broad vision into a credible, executable MVP without sacrificing the customer experience or introducing unnecessary launch risks.
My role
As Product Lead within Mooncascade's delivery team, I owned product delivery from early scope definition through the MVP launch. I worked closely with Bigbank's business stakeholders, designers, backend engineers and operations teams, and with Mooncascade's mobile development team.
What I led
Defining a realistic MVP
I worked with stakeholders to establish the essential product capabilities, understand the business priorities and turn an evolving scope into a transparent Now-Next-Later roadmap.
Balancing speed and user experience
Bigbank was open to reusing existing web functionality inside the mobile app to accelerate delivery. I helped evaluate where that was a sensible compromise and where native experiences mattered for usability, accessibility and App Store approval. The team also implemented shared authentication so customers could move into existing web functionality without logging in again.
Removing a critical design bottleneck
I identified early that design capacity could prevent engineering from progressing, putting both the launch timeline and the development budget at risk. I proposed bringing in an experienced mobile and fintech designer to establish the initial flows and foundations alongside Bigbank's in-house designer. The client agreed, and design and engineering were able to progress together.
Building for learning
I introduced user testing, in-app feedback collection and behavioural analytics so the team could identify issues and inform later improvements, and coordinated localization work across the Baltic markets.
The outcome
Bigbank's first mobile banking MVP launched in four months, giving customers access to their accounts, balances, lending products, payments, transaction history and key account services.
The project demonstrated something I keep coming back to: fast delivery and thoughtful product decisions don't have to be opposing priorities.