Client
Timeline
Team
Tools
Overview
Cash Passport is Mastercard's reloadable, multi-currency prepaid travel card first built in 2011. Over a decade later, the product's underlying value (secure, guaranteed-rate spending abroad) hadn't changed, but the market around it had: challenger banks and fintechs had redefined what a "travel money" experience should feel like. I worked with Brillio Design team on a full CX refresh of the Cash Passport ecosystem, web, app, and the internal staff portal repositioning it from a legacy prepaid card into a smart travel companion.
What I did
I worked as part of a cross-functional team - a Design Director, Product Analyst, 2 Lead Designers, and 3 Senior Designers - owning the app and web experience end-to-end. I designed flows and screens in close collaboration with a fellow designer on my pod, focusing on the consumer-facing journey: onboarding, money movement, and the transparency/control surfaces the research flagged as the biggest trust gaps. A parallel workstream on the team covered the staff portal.
The problem
1
Cash Passport was losing ground not on trust, but on experience. Sentiment analysis of public reviews showed 85% expressing extreme dissatisfaction, with frustration compounding at every stage of the journey — from mild confusion during research ("puzzled by fee transparency") to outright anger by the support stage ("enraged," "betrayed," "exhausted"). Breaking down the negative sentiment: 40% traced to fees/FX, 35% to support failures, and 25% to usability.
2
Competitive benchmarking made the gap concrete. Against Wise, Monzo, and Revolut, Cash Passport scored roughly 2/5 on core product features (multi-currency support, FX transparency, virtual cards, top-up flexibility) versus competitor averages of 4–5. On digital discoverability, the gap was just as stark — an SEO/GEO score of 72/50 against Revolut's 91/90, with monthly site traffic in the tens of thousands versus Wise's 136 million.
3
Guerrilla research with 12 international travelers (UK-based, Dec 2025) confirmed why people were choosing competitors instead: a contained, fraud-safe "pot of money," no per-purchase international fees, and transparent exchange rates — table-stakes expectations Cash Passport wasn't meeting.
Hypothesis
Cash Passport wasn't failing because the core product idea was wrong — a locked, contained pot of travel money is still a real need. It was failing because the experience layer (onboarding friction, fee opacity, fragmented web/app journeys, near-zero digital discoverability) hadn't evolved while the market's baseline expectation had. If we rebuilt the experience around transparency, self-service, and a coherent omnichannel journey, we could reposition the product from "basic legacy card" to "best-in-class travel companion" — without needing to change what the underlying product actually does.
What We Built
The refresh spanned three surfaces — consumer app, web, and the internal staff portal — structured as a Foundation (MVP) layer to close experience gaps, and an Elevate (MVP+) layer for AI-driven, high-value additions.
Authentication
Simplified the login experience with a more secure and streamlined authentication flow, while ensuring the app met PCI DSS, PSD2, and GDPR requirements across different regions worldwide.
Onboarding
Reworked the card purchase and onboarding flow to reduce friction, improve clarity, and create a smoother path from getting started to completing a purchase.
Money Movement:
Redesigned load, move, and top-up flows including Google Pay/Apple Pay top-ups, auto-purse creation by destination, and guardrailed auto-reloads plus a push toward virtual cards as the preferred entry point over physical plastic.
Transparency & Control:
Fee clarity through UX writing and layout, card/currency controls, real-time balance and FX visibility on a redesigned home dashboard.
Omnichannel continuity
Journeys that could start on web and finish on app (and vice versa) — directly addressing the fragmentation research flagged as a trust gap.
Staff Portal:
Parallel investment in the internal servicing experience — role-based dashboards, simplified login (SSO), and smarter case-handling tools — since agent-side friction was compounding the customer-side support complaints.
⚠️ This case study has been intentionally limited due to NDA and confidentiality requirements. For a deeper look into the problem, design process, and solutions.
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