PayPal
CashCard&DesignSystem
Designing financial access for 10M+ Americans — and the visual language of a newly independent PayPal
Role
UX Designer
Duration
2015 – 2018
Platform
Mobile · iOS / Android
Team
UX Design, Product, Engineering, Brand
Users
10M+ PayPal customers
I designed the core Cash Card mobile banking experience (enrollment, cash management, savings) and contributed to the PayPal Design Language System — component library, pattern standards, and the PayPal Sans typeface project with Klim Type Foundry.
Overview
Outcome Snapshot
What shipped, why it mattered, and how impact was measured.
The Cash Card wasn't just another debit card. It was PayPal's bet on financial inclusion — a mobile banking experience for people who had never had a traditional bank account. I designed the card enrollment, cash management, and savings features, while simultaneously helping build the design system that would unify PayPal's visual identity post-eBay.
PayPal had just separated from eBay and was rebuilding its identity as an independent fintech company. The Cash Card was its first physical product — a debit card designed to bring mobile banking to millions of underbanked Americans. Simultaneously, the company needed a unified design language across all its products.
10M+
Cash Card users
85%
Enrollment completion (industry avg: 40%)
100+
Design system components
Cash Card
Banking for People Who Don't Trust Banks
Our target users had been burned by overdraft fees, hidden charges, and confusing fine print at traditional banks. Designing for them wasn't about making banking "easy" — it was about making it trustworthy. Every screen had to communicate transparency: no hidden fees, no surprises, no financial jargon.
The enrollment flow was the critical funnel. Industry average completion rates for financial product applications hovered around 40%. Our goal was to prove that a mobile-first, plain-language approach could dramatically outperform that.
- Card Enrollment — Under 2-minute application using progressive disclosure and 6th-grade reading level language. No financial jargon, no asterisks
- Cash In & Out — ATM deposits, direct deposit setup, and balance management with zero-fee transparency shown before every transaction
- Savings & Goals — Visual goal-setting with auto round-ups, designed around the psychology of small, visible wins rather than intimidating savings targets
Design System
One Visual Language for a Newly Independent Company
After the eBay separation, PayPal's products looked like they came from 5 different companies. The web app, mobile apps, merchant tools, and internal dashboards each had their own visual language, interaction patterns, and component libraries. The Design Language System was how we unified all of it.
My contribution focused on the component library, pattern standards, and the PayPal Sans typeface project with Klim Type Foundry — a custom typeface designed specifically for digital interfaces and international character support.
- Component Library — 100+ reusable components with usage guidelines, accessibility specs, and platform-specific adaptations for web, iOS, and Android
- PayPal Sans — Custom typeface with Klim Type Foundry, optimized for screen rendering and supporting 100+ languages
- Pattern Library — Standardized patterns for error handling, empty states, loading, and onboarding across all PayPal products
- Accessibility Foundation — WCAG AA compliance baked into every component, not retrofitted after design
Impact
Scale That Mattered
The Cash Card became one of PayPal's fastest-growing products. More importantly, it reached people who traditional banks had overlooked. The design system became the foundation for visual consistency across every PayPal touchpoint — from the mobile app to merchant checkout to internal tools.
10M+
Cash Card users
85%
Enrollment completion
100+
Design components shipped
4.7★
App Store rating
“The PayPal Cash Card is the easiest way to manage your money — period.”
Reflection
Key Learnings
01
Trust is the Product
For underbanked users, the primary barrier isn't usability — it's trust. Every design decision had to pass the "would I feel safe putting my paycheck here?" test. That meant zero hidden fees, plain language, and showing exactly what will happen before any action.
02
Design Systems Are Organizational Design
Building components is the easy part. The hard part is governance: who decides when a pattern changes? How do you handle platform-specific exceptions? I learned that a design system's longevity depends more on its process documentation than its component library.
03
Design for the Phone in One Hand
Our users checked their balance while waiting for the bus, deposited cash at ATMs in between errands, and set savings goals before bed. Every critical action had to work with one thumb on a 4.7-inch screen.
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