Cowrywise
Integrating simplified investment on MoMo.
A simplified mini-app offering Cowrywise investment services to MTN MoMo PSB customers.
Role:
Product Designer
Team:
2 Designers (Tiana & I), 1 Product Manager, 2 Engineers
Outcomes:
Useflow, UI Designs, Motion assets, Interactive prototypes
Overview
Cowrywise is a leading fintech firm and wealth manager in Nigeria and Africa with over 1.5 million customers. The company offers innovative savings and investment services for personal financial needs and high yield investments for businesses.
Project breakdown
MoMo Payment Service Bank (PSB) is a fintech subsidiary of MTN — Africa’s largest communications network provider — offering basic financial services and utilities to over 10 million users and businesses.
To expand access to savings and investment services, Cowrywise partnered with MTN Nigeria to launch a simplified version of its platform within the MoMo app. This integration would allow MoMo users to easily invest in mutual funds, earn returns, and withdraw directly to their MoMo wallets.
The challenge
Our first challenge was understanding and designing for a new user segment unfamiliar with traditional investment platforms. Additionally, the mini-app would only be accessible via an iframe or Progressive Web App (PWA) — not natively within the MoMo app — which introduced unique navigation, onboarding, and performance constraints.
Another critical task was ensuring that users could seamlessly transfer their investments to the Cowrywise app, should they choose to switch.
The process
Working closely with a team of product managers and developers, we conducted multiple meetings with key stakeholders at MoMo. These sessions helped us define the project scope, navigate technical constraints, and gain deeper insights into customer behaviors and expectations.
Although the discussions were largely technical and business-focused, they provided valuable context into the daily workflows of MoMo customers, the limitations of a PWA environment, and practical ideas for creating a seamless user journey.
Once we had enough insights, I led the effort to map out detailed user flows covering onboarding, investments, withdrawals, and migration paths to the Cowrywise app.
Style guide
To ensure a consistent experience across the platform, Tiana and I designed a dedicated style guide and lightweight component library. These resources were tailored to reflect MoMo’s brand identity, tone, and visual language, helping maintain familiarity for users while introducing them to Cowrywise’s offerings.
Splash screen and onboarding
To provide visual cues that the mini-app experience was separate from the native MoMo app, I designed intentional loading states and navigation patterns that mimic responsive web interactions. This helped set user expectations early and ensured a smoother transition into the mini-app environment.
Verification
Since MoMo users had already provided key information like their BVN during account creation, onboarding for investing was simplified. Users only needed to grant Cowrywise permission to access their existing data. However, they were still required to provide their National Identification Number (NIN) for verification, as it was not collected during MoMo’s original onboarding process.
Simplified Investing
The investment amount pills were carefully customized based on user insights, money habits, account tiers, and investment balances. This approach ensured that we suggested relevant and realistic amounts to customers, making it easier for them to get started with investing.
Accessible earnings and interest rates
Early-stage investors often misunderstand interest rates and how they affect earnings. To address this, we made interest rates visible but simplified user-facing earnings into daily entries. I also designed supportive empty states to encourage first-time investors to take action and make their first investment.
Withdrawals
For business and security reasons, withdrawals are processed within 24 hours, and users can only initiate one withdrawal at a time. Knowing this could be frustrating, I designed proactive prompts to set expectations early and integrated countdowns to track the status of withdrawals in real-time.
Account and investment letter
Users can generate investment letters, often needed for travel or official documentation, and have them sent directly to their emails. I also provided the option to customize recipient addresses, offering flexibility for different user needs.
Impact
Since its launch in late 2024, simplified investing on MoMo has seen strong adoption, with Asset Under Management (AUM) from MoMo users surpassing ₦100 million for the Cowrywise team.
We also standardized a reusable mini-app template, making future integrations faster and essentially plug-and-play for the Cowrywise team. The project has also laid the foundation for future strategic partnerships and platform expansions.
Say hello!
hello@adimchi.com