RIZN / BCS design exercise
Sima Mikheeva
View designs
Scenario
Maya is 25 and lives in Dubai. She often meets friends at cafés and restaurants. After dinner, one person pays by card and everyone splits the bill.
In her banking app, she normally has to find a contact, enter an amount and confirm the transfer. She wants to send money to someone nearby by selecting them on screen, like AirDrop for files.
Brief
Design an AirDrop-like nearby payment feature within a mobile banking app, including the screens needed to complete the journey.

Why build this?
For users
My hypothesis was that nearby payments could remove the friction of entering recipient details and completing a long payment flow, for example when paying a friend at a restaurant or a service provider.
For the business
A simpler transfer experience could support loyalty, transaction frequency and acquisition.
Who would use it?
As an unvalidated exercise assumption, I estimated that around 70% of the bank's audience might have limited discretionary spending, while the remaining 30% could be a core audience for leisure-related transfers.
The following figures describe the UAE population
  • 87%
    of UAE residents are immigrants
    source
  • 66%
    of the population is aged 20-44
    source
  • 70%
    Men
    source
  • 70%
    Lower-income group
    an assumption developed with AI
Draft personas
  • Maya, 25, Dubai
    Escort
    • She often meets friends at cafés and restaurants. One person pays by card, and they split the bill afterwards.
    • She wants to select a nearby person and send money quickly, instead of searching contacts, entering an amount and confirming a conventional transfer.
  • Oleg, 45, Dubai
    Maya's financial sponsor
    • He meets business partners at restaurants and sometimes receives transfers. He also pays many independent service providers, such as tilers.
    • He prefers not to share his phone number and wants to transfer money without exposing account details.
  • Norman, 30
    General worker
    • He moves frequently and works with different people. Colleagues buy and split lunch together each day.
    • With several languages spoken at work, a phone interaction feels easier than typing payment details.
Existing market examples
The exercise considered Apple Cash through iMessage and Samsung Pay Send as references. Blink was also explored, but I could not verify a comparable feature.
Competitors
Direct alternatives
Device-specific transfers do not cover every combination of phones. Cross-device and bank compatibility were potential gaps to investigate.
Indirect alternatives
Card terminals, QR payments, saved recipients, cash and informal exchanges.
Hypotheses
If transfers worked across banks,
we could reduce bank, device and technology barriers and encourage organic adoption.
If transfers were simpler and faster than alternatives,
they could replace some cash and terminal payments and increase transaction activity.
If the journey were intuitive with minimal text,
people with different languages and literacy levels could use it.
If users could hide personal details,
privacy-conscious customers might be more willing to use the feature.
If transfers worked without touching phones,
we could reduce physical friction and serve more situations.
If fees were reduced or removed,
users might choose this method more often.
If a home screen widget offered nearby transfers,
fewer steps and a dynamic list of nearby recipients could increase use.
Where the feature fits in the roadmap
Version 1: MVP
  • Online account opening
  • Salary transfers
  • Utilities and mobile payments
  • Cashback and rewards
  • Multiple currencies
  • Notifications and security
  • Mobile access
Version 2: improvements
  • Improved transfers and scheduled payments
  • Clear exchange rates and fees
  • Information about taxes and regulations
  • Spending limits
  • Financial literacy
✅ Version 3: growth
  • Referral programme
  • Payment codes and nearby transfers
  • Partnerships
  • Subscription
Potential technical approaches
✅ NFC
NFC-enabled phones can exchange data with nearby devices.

Constraint: supporting both iOS and Android.
Banking app
If both people bank with the same provider, the payment experience could be integrated into its app.

Constraint: not everyone would have the bank's app at launch.
A phone sticker
with a chip
A bank card could come with chip stickers for phone cases, including extras to share with friends.

Questions: security and integration with other banks.
For this concept, I assumed cross-platform NFC-based initiation, independent of the recipient's bank. Technical feasibility would need validation.
If Maya sent money to Anna, who did not use RIZN, Anna could choose a receiving bank on her phone, using a familiar sharing-style interaction.
The proposed solution
Annotated designs and a prototype are also available.
View designs
  • Entry points
    Transfers are accessible from a card or the main transfer section. A phone home screen widget could offer a shortcut, with a watch version as a later extension.
  • Choose a recipient
    Nearby transfers are placed prominently in a frequently visited section. A dynamic widget attracts attention, while settings provide privacy and visibility controls.
    The nearby recipients list refreshes every 30 seconds while Payments is open. Both the widget and in-app entry lead to the transfer screen.
  • Transfer
    The sender can change the funding card, while the selected recipient stays fixed; that choice would need testing. No transfer fee is proposed as an acquisition incentive. After entering an amount, the sender drags the active control to send a request to the recipient.
  • Anna, Maya's friend, receives the request
    A bottom sheet asks Anna to accept the money and choose a bank. A later version could include the sender's payment note. The concept places RIZN first as an acquisition opportunity, leading non-customers to installation and registration. After choosing a bank, Anna drags the confirmation control.
  • Success
    Once Anna accepts, Maya sees the updated status. In-app and push confirmations could follow the app's wider transaction patterns. Maya can initiate another transfer while the first remains pending.
Interested in this design exercise?