Bank of Montreal.
- Bank of Montreal /
- Experience Strategy /
- 2022-2024
Design Concept 2024, the first bank in Canada and the US to win the category
The Client
Small business owners do not have time for bad software.
Online Business Banking is the platform BMO's business clients run their banking on. Small business owners do not have time for bad software: they are running payroll, chasing invoices, and making cash-flow decisions between everything else. In 2022, BMO set out to redesign the platform around the people who use it.
What Was at Stake
25 hours of listening, distilled into four core needs.
Our founder led the strategy phase as Strategy Lead at Signifly. The work started with listening: 25 hours of interviews with small and medium-sized business owners, distilled into four core user needs. Time recovery. Independence. Cash-flow clarity. Banking that enables decisions instead of just recording them.
Those needs were pressure-tested in a three-day strategy workshop with BMO executives in Toronto: research playbacks, design thinking sessions, opportunity mapping, and ideation with the people who would own the platform. The output was the methodology the whole redesign ran on: a double-diamond process from research to recommendations, and a two-week design-sprint operating model the build teams worked in.
What Changed
Navigation rebuilt around user tasks instead of banking categories.
The redesign was built on that strategic foundation. Navigation was rebuilt around user tasks instead of banking categories. Friction was removed from the flows business owners use most. Education was placed at decision points, where it changes outcomes.
The design team built the interface and the Lexicon design system on top of the strategy. The platform earned a Red Dot Award: Design Concept 2024, making BMO the first bank in Canada and the US to win the category. Per the design case study, the platform launched to 83% subscriber satisfaction, 100% positive product-performance impact, and 53% faster design-to-development cycles.
Interface design and design system by Signifly. Visuals courtesy of sunnyday.design.
Design Concept 2024, the first bank in Canada and the US to win the category
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