Work / Ownera (fintech, backed by J.P. Morgan) · 2023 → 2026
Designing for Investors Who Expect More
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Ownership
Sole designer
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Scope
End-to-end: portfolio → invest → trade
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Audience
High-net-worth end users
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Status
Shipped to production
TL;DR
Problem
The investor app was built by engineers before design existed. Confusing structure, cramped side panels, hidden costs, and components that collapsed under real data.
What I did
Restructured the core IA (Assets → Portfolio), redesigned the asset panel around focus, made every cost transparent in the invest flow, and rebuilt the underlying components to scale, across data volumes and across bank brands.
Result
A production-ready investor experience that matches what high-net-worth users expect from a platform holding their money.
Context
Ownera is a fintech platform connecting banks and financial institutions to trade tokenized digital assets, backed by J.P. Morgan. Alongside the Admin Platform, it offers an investor-facing app, the screens where end investors meet their money. I was the sole product designer across both.
The Moment
Picture the user: a private investor with serious net worth, evaluating digital-asset opportunities on a platform backed by J.P. Morgan. He opens “Assets”, and can't tell what he actually owns: the tab mixed owned investments with potential opportunities. The details he needs live in a narrow side panel with an endless scroll. Everything about his money is there; nothing about it feels like it respects his money.
Why This Mattered
The user's problem
“I cannot tell what I own, or how I am doing.” The answers exist, buried across tabs and a cramped panel.
The business problem
Recurring support inquiries, and eroding trust of high-net-worth clients, on a platform sold to banks.
Where the decision sits
Clarity is not a UI nicety here. It is what keeps capital on the platform.
The Goal
Every investor opens the app with the same two questions. The goal was to answer both at a glance — clarity and control, the core value the platform kept failing to deliver.
Question 01
What do I own?
Answered by: Portfolio, total balance on top.
Question 02
How am I doing?
Answered by: allocation in the center, balance box in the panel.
The Decisions
01Portfolio, not Assets
The word “Assets” was the root confusion, it meant “what I own” to users but contained opportunities too. I split the model: Portfolio (what you own) and Trade (what's in motion), and surfaced the two answers investors open the screen for, total balance on top, allocation in the center. Naming is architecture: one renamed tab removed the recurring “where are my assets?” confusion CS kept hearing.
02Fighting for focus, landing on a compromise
The side panel had a real-estate problem: critical financial context, balance, purchase history, buried under long scrolls. Benchmarking leading investment platforms showed a consistent pattern: every asset gets a full screen with room to breathe, and people investing significant capital expect their asset to be treated like one. I pushed for a full-page asset view. It didn't make the roadmap cut, prioritization went elsewhere, so I designed the compromise that kept the principle alive: an expandable panel, giving each asset the option of focus without rebuilding the navigation. Not the screen I fought for, but the user got most of the value, and the full-page direction stayed documented as the next step.
03Components that scale, in two directions
The original components collapsed under real-world data volumes. I built a Box component system, one flexible container for varied financial information, designed to hold scale instead of fighting it. And scale meant two things here: data volume, and brands, the app was designed as a white-label system that institutions could wrap in their own identity, demonstrated with example bank skins. Less invention, more discipline: a small system engineering could ship fast, and any bank could own.
04No surprises with money
In the invest flow, I explored competing directions (A/B variants of the same steps) and landed on one principle: total cost transparency. Fees and FX exposed upfront, before commitment, and a deterministic review step before anything final. For users investing serious capital, trust isn't a brand value, it's a UI decision: they should never meet a number for the first time after clicking.
They should never meet a number for the first time after clicking.
Before · After
Assets: owned and offered mixed in one list, details in a cramped panel.
What Changed
The app went from an engineering build to a production-ready product: restructured IA, focused asset views, transparent costs, and full production coverage, empty states, loading skeletons, error and pending states, responsive down to mobile. No formal metrics were set up; the honest evidence is the product reaching production and the “missing assets” confusion disappearing from CS conversations. Next time, I'd define one signal upfront: how often users bounce between tabs before acting.
Next Step
A Home Dashboard concept: one glance at everything — value, allocation, activity, history. Designed as the platform's next chapter, positioning it as an investment management system and strengthening retention and daily stickiness.
Next Project