Building design ownership inside a digital bank.

Joining halfway, with launch approaching

The engagement began midway through design and delivery of a digital banking programme in Egypt. The bank already had a three-person design team, an inherited design system and a product taking shape across Everyday Banking, Cards & Lending and Lifestyle services.

Individual screens looked cohesive, but journeys crossing those areas exposed inconsistencies. The deeper issue was how work reached Design: requirements moved straight into Figma, with limited discovery, research or challenge.

Making the work visible

A shared Design board, short daily check-ins and a clearer review process let designers see dependencies across value streams and review each other’s work before stakeholders did.

To make the practice outlast the engagement, responsibilities followed individual strengths. One designer took ownership of the design system; a senior designer began mentoring a colleague who needed more support.

Better decisions before the UI

The most significant change happened in design reviews. Instead of starting with finished screens, designers explained the problem, the user, the journey, the evidence and the connection to the wider bank.

Sometimes that meant returning to flows or sketches; sometimes it meant questioning the requirement with Business. Within roughly the first month, Business was involving Design earlier in discovery.

Removing the mechanical work

Designers were manually moving English and Arabic copy between Figma and Confluence, then updating screens after review. A Figma plugin, built with AI-assisted development, now exports structured copy and re-imports revisions into the right text layers.

A team beginning to own its decisions

Reviews increasingly began with the requirement, user, journey and rationale; screens followed the explanation. Business involved Design earlier, peer review and mentoring strengthened collaboration, and the design system gained a clear owner.

Research remained lightweight and delivery constraints remained real. This was an improvement in the team’s working practice, not a completed transformation.