Early days of a scale-up
I had the chance to join Lydia early on as the 2nd designer of the company, when the core product team was being assembled. Together we grew Lydia from 1.5 to 6M users in 2 years, implementing key current account and social features. Lydia is now one of the major fintech companies in Europe, with more than 8M users.
Product Design
User Research
B2C
Early stage scale-up
Early days of a scale-up
I had the chance to join Lydia early on as the 2nd designer of the company, when the core product team was being assembled. Together we grew Lydia from 1.5 to 6M users in 2 years, implementing key current account and social features. Lydia is now one of the major fintech companies in Europe, with more than 8M users.
Product Design
User Research
B2C
Early stage scale-up
Early days of a scale-up
I had the chance to join Lydia early on as the 2nd designer of the company, when the core product team was being assembled. Together we grew Lydia from 1.5 to 6M users in 2 years, implementing key current account and social features. Lydia is now one of the major fintech companies in Europe, with more than 8M users.
Product Design
User Research
B2C
Early stage scale-up
During my 2 years at Lydia, I worked on core banking features such as spendings history, KYC processes, shared accounts, remunerated savings, moneypots, cashback, etc… I also led user research processes. Below is a selection of works aiming at the same goal: make Lydia the best current account in Europe.
During my 2 years at Lydia, I worked on core banking features such as spendings history, KYC processes, shared accounts, remunerated savings, moneypots, cashback, etc… I also led user research processes. Below is a selection of works aiming at the same goal: make Lydia the best current account in Europe.
During my 2 years at Lydia, I worked on core banking features such as spendings history, KYC processes, shared accounts, remunerated savings, moneypots, cashback, etc… I also led user research processes. Below is a selection of works aiming at the same goal: make Lydia the best current account in Europe.
3 highlights from building Lydia's transactions history
Label cleaning and personalization
Most banks display transaction labels as cryptic strings of numbers and letters: noise that makes it hard to understand what actually happened on an account. Based on this observation, we introduced label cleaning at Lydia, removing superfluous characters and capital letters. It was a small innovation we pioneered: no more “CB Franprix 563002” or “AIRBNB*HEBQ-LU 28733,” just “Franprix” and “Airbnb.” The cleaning algorithm was developed with the help of Paul Messinesi (Data) and Hoai-Phong Tran (PO).
3 highlights from building Lydia's transactions history
Label cleaning and personalization
Most banks display transaction labels as cryptic strings of numbers and letters: noise that makes it hard to understand what actually happened on an account. Based on this observation, we introduced label cleaning at Lydia, removing superfluous characters and capital letters. It was a small innovation we pioneered: no more “CB Franprix 563002” or “AIRBNB*HEBQ-LU 28733,” just “Franprix” and “Airbnb.” The cleaning algorithm was developed with the help of Paul Messinesi (Data) and Hoai-Phong Tran (PO).
3 highlights from building Lydia's transactions history
Label cleaning and personalization
Most banks display transaction labels as cryptic strings of numbers and letters: noise that makes it hard to understand what actually happened on an account. Based on this observation, we introduced label cleaning at Lydia, removing superfluous characters and capital letters. It was a small innovation we pioneered: no more “CB Franprix 563002” or “AIRBNB*HEBQ-LU 28733,” just “Franprix” and “Airbnb.” The cleaning algorithm was developed with the help of Paul Messinesi (Data) and Hoai-Phong Tran (PO).
One of the more unexpected elements of the new history feature was the ability to add souvenir photos to a transaction. This was a strategic choice to reinforce Lydia’s positioning: a transaction isn’t just a money transfer, but a trace of a moment. We therefore highlighted photos in the history, knowing this feature wouldn’t be used for everyday purchases. Although user tests largely advised against it, we decided to launch it anyway. It later became a Premium feature and is now often used in a roundabout way to store concert tickets and receipts.
One of the more unexpected elements of the new history feature was the ability to add souvenir photos to a transaction. This was a strategic choice to reinforce Lydia’s positioning: a transaction isn’t just a money transfer, but a trace of a moment. We therefore highlighted photos in the history, knowing this feature wouldn’t be used for everyday purchases. Although user tests largely advised against it, we decided to launch it anyway. It later became a Premium feature and is now often used in a roundabout way to store concert tickets and receipts.
One of the more unexpected elements of the new history feature was the ability to add souvenir photos to a transaction. This was a strategic choice to reinforce Lydia’s positioning: a transaction isn’t just a money transfer, but a trace of a moment. We therefore highlighted photos in the history, knowing this feature wouldn’t be used for everyday purchases. Although user tests largely advised against it, we decided to launch it anyway. It later became a Premium feature and is now often used in a roundabout way to store concert tickets and receipts.
Less is more: history cells & receipts
Yesterday, a Lydia user only had a single balance. Today, they may have a main account, shared accounts, a birthday fund, aggregated external accounts, savings accounts, and more. Users can send and receive money, move money between their own accounts, or be charged for payments made by someone else, creating far more complex scenarios. We called the transaction list a cell, and the existing cell format no longer worked in a multi-account environment. We needed to redesign it to decide, case by case, which information to show or hide. Among the key decisions, we removed transaction dates and the € symbol to focus on what mattered most: what happened, who the transaction was with, which account was involved (when relevant), and who initiated the payment, shown only when it wasn’t the user.
Less is more: history cells & receipts
Yesterday, a Lydia user only had a single balance. Today, they may have a main account, shared accounts, a birthday fund, aggregated external accounts, savings accounts, and more. Users can send and receive money, move money between their own accounts, or be charged for payments made by someone else, creating far more complex scenarios. We called the transaction list a cell, and the existing cell format no longer worked in a multi-account environment. We needed to redesign it to decide, case by case, which information to show or hide. Among the key decisions, we removed transaction dates and the € symbol to focus on what mattered most: what happened, who the transaction was with, which account was involved (when relevant), and who initiated the payment, shown only when it wasn’t the user.
Less is more: history cells & receipts
Yesterday, a Lydia user only had a single balance. Today, they may have a main account, shared accounts, a birthday fund, aggregated external accounts, savings accounts, and more. Users can send and receive money, move money between their own accounts, or be charged for payments made by someone else, creating far more complex scenarios. We called the transaction list a cell, and the existing cell format no longer worked in a multi-account environment. We needed to redesign it to decide, case by case, which information to show or hide. Among the key decisions, we removed transaction dates and the € symbol to focus on what mattered most: what happened, who the transaction was with, which account was involved (when relevant), and who initiated the payment, shown only when it wasn’t the user.
Searching & Finding
Search had long been missing from the transaction history, forcing users to scroll endlessly through past payments. To support Lydia’s goal of becoming a primary checking account, we introduced a search feature that allowed text search across amounts, labels, dates, merchants, or friends, month-by-month navigation for budgeting, and advanced filters to recover transactions users couldn’t fully remember. Filters and text search worked together to quickly narrow results and surface any buried payment.
Searching & Finding
Search had long been missing from the transaction history, forcing users to scroll endlessly through past payments. To support Lydia’s goal of becoming a primary checking account, we introduced a search feature that allowed text search across amounts, labels, dates, merchants, or friends, month-by-month navigation for budgeting, and advanced filters to recover transactions users couldn’t fully remember. Filters and text search worked together to quickly narrow results and surface any buried payment.
Searching & Finding
Search had long been missing from the transaction history, forcing users to scroll endlessly through past payments. To support Lydia’s goal of becoming a primary checking account, we introduced a search feature that allowed text search across amounts, labels, dates, merchants, or friends, month-by-month navigation for budgeting, and advanced filters to recover transactions users couldn’t fully remember. Filters and text search worked together to quickly narrow results and surface any buried payment.
3 highlights from Money Requests
Relying on Existing Peer-to-Peer Payment Patterns
Lydia users shared the following use case: when they pay for someone, they sometimes wish they were able to send a reimbursement request directly via Lydia, often at the moment of purchase (or in the hours that follow). By doing so, they hand over the responsibility to the friend who owes them and move one with their life.
3 highlights from Money Requests
Relying on Existing Peer-to-Peer Payment Patterns
Lydia users shared the following use case: when they pay for someone, they sometimes wish they were able to send a reimbursement request directly via Lydia, often at the moment of purchase (or in the hours that follow). By doing so, they hand over the responsibility to the friend who owes them and move one with their life.
3 highlights from Money Requests
Relying on Existing Peer-to-Peer Payment Patterns
Lydia users shared the following use case: when they pay for someone, they sometimes wish they were able to send a reimbursement request directly via Lydia, often at the moment of purchase (or in the hours that follow). By doing so, they hand over the responsibility to the friend who owes them and move one with their life.
Sending money to a friend is the most used action on the app, so we decided to build upon this existing flow, which we know is understood by the vast majority of users. It also makes sense to have a request flow that is perfectly symmetrical to the payment flow.
We therefore kept the following order :
Contact selection
Display of the Summary view
Amount input
Optional change of debited or credited account
Confirmation
We then simply needed to adapt the summary screen while keeping the same logic: writing a simple sentence where the user “fills in the blanks.” Which gives us:
Payment: Send Amount to Contact from Debited Account for Reason
Request: Request Amount from Contact to Credited Account for Reason
Multiple Requests sent at once
Inspired by user interviews, we took this opportunity to add the ability to request and send to multiple users at once. Here’s how it works for requests : Imagine a user who paid for a round of beers for 3 friends at a bar: if they want to be reimbursed using Lydia's request feature, they shouldn’t have to repeat the exact same action 3 times in a row. So we had to account for this scenario without compromising the main use case: a single simple request.
Multiple Requests sent at once
Inspired by user interviews, we took this opportunity to add the ability to request and send to multiple users at once. Here’s how it works for requests : Imagine a user who paid for a round of beers for 3 friends at a bar: if they want to be reimbursed using Lydia's request feature, they shouldn’t have to repeat the exact same action 3 times in a row. So we had to account for this scenario without compromising the main use case: a single simple request.
Multiple Requests sent at once
Inspired by user interviews, we took this opportunity to add the ability to request and send to multiple users at once. Here’s how it works for requests : Imagine a user who paid for a round of beers for 3 friends at a bar: if they want to be reimbursed using Lydia's request feature, they shouldn’t have to repeat the exact same action 3 times in a row. So we had to account for this scenario without compromising the main use case: a single simple request.
We also displayed the total amount requested on the confirmation button to avoid confusion: Total amount = Requested amount × Number of contacts selected, and not Requested amount ÷ Number of contacts. This may seem obvious, but the division logic corresponds to a different use case.
Long-Click Interaction for Advanced Users
There was one remaining issue: our solution didn’t allow users to directly select multiple contacts before reaching the Summary view. This is a minor problem that concerns only a small number of users, but we still wanted to address it. So we opted for a more advanced behavior: the long-click. This is similar to what you do in the Gmail app to select multiple messages: You press and hold on an item until a checkmark appears. You can then select/deselect each item in the list (and, for example, mark them all as read or delete them). Since this interaction occurs at the very first step of the flow, it lets experienced users shortcut the process and achieve their goal more quickly. Limitation: This gesture is only meant for users already familiar with this advanced interaction pattern.
Long-Click Interaction for Advanced Users
There was one remaining issue: our solution didn’t allow users to directly select multiple contacts before reaching the Summary view. This is a minor problem that concerns only a small number of users, but we still wanted to address it. So we opted for a more advanced behavior: the long-click. This is similar to what you do in the Gmail app to select multiple messages: You press and hold on an item until a checkmark appears. You can then select/deselect each item in the list (and, for example, mark them all as read or delete them). Since this interaction occurs at the very first step of the flow, it lets experienced users shortcut the process and achieve their goal more quickly. Limitation: This gesture is only meant for users already familiar with this advanced interaction pattern.
Long-Click Interaction for Advanced Users
There was one remaining issue: our solution didn’t allow users to directly select multiple contacts before reaching the Summary view. This is a minor problem that concerns only a small number of users, but we still wanted to address it. So we opted for a more advanced behavior: the long-click. This is similar to what you do in the Gmail app to select multiple messages: You press and hold on an item until a checkmark appears. You can then select/deselect each item in the list (and, for example, mark them all as read or delete them). Since this interaction occurs at the very first step of the flow, it lets experienced users shortcut the process and achieve their goal more quickly. Limitation: This gesture is only meant for users already familiar with this advanced interaction pattern.
Adapting Impacted Sections & Tracking
The final part of the work involved listing all the impacts across the rest of the application:
Adapting Impacted Sections & Tracking
The final part of the work involved listing all the impacts across the rest of the application:
Adapting Impacted Sections & Tracking
The final part of the work involved listing all the impacts across the rest of the application:
Update the “Split the Bill” feature, to maintain visual and functional consistency with this neighboring feature.
Update the list of possible error messages for sending a multi-request: What happens if the error concerns all contacts? Or only one? This case is more complex than it seems in terms of development, as several types of errors are possible (with different back-end implications).
Create display rules for sent requests and their follow-ups or cancellations (for example, if a contact has already paid their share).
We also implemented a tracking plan to measure the effectiveness of this new feature and to decide—based on data—whether it should be kept, modified, or removed in the future. Among the tracked data:
Number of requests sent
Number of long-clicks performed
Nb of simultaneous requests sent vs. nb of identical requests sent one after another
Use of Multi-request vs. use of Split the Bill
6M users
During the 2 years I worked there, we contributed to grow Lydia from 1.5M to 6M users. If you want to know more about this take a look at this article on the birth on Lydia Transaction History
During the 2 years I worked there, we contributed to grow Lydia from 1.5M to 6M users. If you want to know more about this take a look at this article on the birth on Lydia Transaction History
During the 2 years I worked there, we contributed to grow Lydia from 1.5M to 6M users. If you want to know more about this take a look at this article on the birth on Lydia Transaction History
Copyright Maxime Lemoine © 2025
Created in Lyon
Copyright Maxime Lemoine © 2025
Created in Lyon
Copyright Maxime Lemoine © 2025
Created in Lyon