Pokowave
Role:
Lead Product Designer
Impact:
3K+ users
$180k+ in transaction volume
Transactions in over 5 African countries
Overview
Gallery
Pokowave is a pan-African money platform. Eight countries, multiple currencies, one account. Send money, pay bills, convert crypto, run a business — all from your phone.
I designed the entire product from scratch. This is version three.
The Decision
Most multi-currency fintech apps are built the same way.
A home screen shows your overview — total balance, recent activity, maybe some analytics. Then there's a separate wallet screen where you actually do things — see your balance per currency, send money, transaction history.
The problem is those two screens share most of the same information. Balance. CTAs. Transaction history. The wallet screen is just the home screen with less on it.
So I removed one of them.
What I Did Instead
The home screen is the wallet screen.
If you're on the Nigerian wallet, the home screen shows your naira balance, your naira transaction history, naira exchange rates, and the CTAs available for naira. Switch to Ghana and everything updates — cedi balance, cedi history, cedi rates, cedi CTAs.
The currency context drives the entire screen.
This works because It eliminates redundancy. There's no longer a screen that exists just to get you to another screen.
It makes features contextual. Bill payment works in Nigeria but not South Africa yet. Instead of hiding that behind a disabled button or an error message, the CTA simply doesn't appear when you're on the ZAR wallet. The UI reflects reality.
It removes a step from the send flow. In the old model, you'd initiate a transfer then select your currency or country. Now the currency is already selected — you're in the NGN wallet, so you're sending naira to a Nigerian recipient. The context is set before you even tap send.
The Discoverability Question
The wallet switcher is a pill next to the balance — flag, currency code. Small but placed exactly where the user's eye lands first. And the exchange rate cards on the home screen — showing NGN to ZAR, NGN to XAF — naturally make users wonder if they hold those currencies. These cards will hopefully inform the users enough to swap currencies at the right time or favorable rates too. Discoverability through curiosity :)
Pokowave is live across 8 African countries. Full product gallery in the next tab.
View project Gallery
Overview
Gallery
Pokowave is a pan-African money platform. Eight countries, multiple currencies, one account. Send money, pay bills, convert crypto, run a business — all from your phone.
I designed the entire product from scratch. This is version three.
The Decision
Most multi-currency fintech apps are built the same way.
A home screen shows your overview — total balance, recent activity, maybe some analytics. Then there's a separate wallet screen where you actually do things — see your balance per currency, send money, transaction history.
The problem is those two screens share most of the same information. Balance. CTAs. Transaction history. The wallet screen is just the home screen with less on it.
So I removed one of them.
What I Did Instead
The home screen is the wallet screen.
If you're on the Nigerian wallet, the home screen shows your naira balance, your naira transaction history, naira exchange rates, and the CTAs available for naira. Switch to Ghana and everything updates — cedi balance, cedi history, cedi rates, cedi CTAs.
The currency context drives the entire screen.
This works because It eliminates redundancy. There's no longer a screen that exists just to get you to another screen.
It makes features contextual. Bill payment works in Nigeria but not South Africa yet. Instead of hiding that behind a disabled button or an error message, the CTA simply doesn't appear when you're on the ZAR wallet. The UI reflects reality.
It removes a step from the send flow. In the old model, you'd initiate a transfer then select your currency or country. Now the currency is already selected — you're in the NGN wallet, so you're sending naira to a Nigerian recipient. The context is set before you even tap send.
The Discoverability Question
The wallet switcher is a pill next to the balance — flag, currency code. Small but placed exactly where the user's eye lands first. And the exchange rate cards on the home screen — showing NGN to ZAR, NGN to XAF — naturally make users wonder if they hold those currencies. These cards will hopefully inform the users enough to swap currencies at the right time or favorable rates too. Discoverability through curiosity :)
Pokowave is live across 8 African countries. Full product gallery in the next tab.
View project Gallery