Cowrywise
Account tiering and rewards system.
A customer categorisation system to improve retention, customer loyalty and offer exclusive perks to high-value customers.
Role:
Product Designer
Team:
1 Designers, 1 Product Manager, 4 Engineers
Outcomes:
UI Design, Illustrations, Interactive prototypes
Overview
Cowrywise is a leading fintech and investment management platform in Nigeria with over 1.5 million customers. Internally, we’ve long categorized customers into tiers based on behaviors like savings patterns, asset size, and risk level. These tiers—ranging from Tier 1 (lowest) to Tier 5 (highest)—helped identify high-value customers and offer personalized experiences.
The goal of this project was to make these tiers visible to customers, encourage upward movement through exclusive benefits, and further deepen trust and engagement.
The process
After looking through data on money habits and saving trends of all 5 tiers, we discovered that Tiers 2–4 exhibited similar money habits, making them suitable to group into one new category. Also, Cowrywise already offers gamifiied system like badges and Streaks, so it was important for me to differentiate Account tiers from the other milestones.
Instead of numeric labels, we opted for a growth-based naming system:
- Seed – ₦1,000+
- Bud – ₦5,000,000+
- Bloom – ₦10,000,000+
This naming aligned with the Cowrywise tone and made the progression feel more organic and aspirational.
Initial appraoch
My first approach was minimalistic and toned down, with the goal of not drawing too much attention. I shared my wireframe with stakeholders, the feedbacks were to turn it up a notch and finding that visually exciting balance.
Second iteration
I introduced collectible tier cards, each with a unique illustration and benefits list. Cards had:
- Claimed and unclaimed states
-A clear breakdown of how close a user was to the next tier
- Messaging that felt rewarding, not exclusive
Tier pills and discoverability
To increase visibility, I added tier "pills" to the home screen—small visual indicators that doubled as quick links to the tier section, improving discovery and engagement.
Pre-tier nudges and celebration
Users approaching a new tier saw a "pre-tier" card prompting them to take action. Upon reaching a new tier, a celebratory welcome screen highlighted their achievement and unlocked benefits—making the moment feel meaningful.
Web view
Impact
We saw an high influx Bud tier customers move to Bloom tier and higher deposits and balance across tiers compared to the past 6 months. The tiering system also strengthened brand perception and trust, showing customers that they can save and invest more on Cowrywise and many others are doing the same.
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