Rebuilding Trust in a 50-Year-Old Credit Product
Company
Itaú
Position
Lead Product Designer
Product
Limite da conta
Industry
Banking
Platform
Mobile
The redesign wasn't a requested deliverable. It came from my own read that the experience was destroying trust. A customer who doesn't trust the product doesn't come back. The project's biggest impact didn't come from an interface decision: it came from changing a processing rule the bank had never questioned in fifty years.
Itaú Emps is Itaú's digital bank for small business owners. I was the sole designer on the Limite da Conta squad, a product descended from the traditional overdraft line, carrying five decades of accumulated distrust. There was a sizable base of customers with an offered credit limit who had never activated the product. Not for lack of need for credit. For lack of trust in the experience.
"I used overdraft once. Got burned. Never again." — Business owner, Itaú credit research interview. Itaú's credit research confirmed three recurring points of confusion: users believed they only paid for days beyond the bonus period (in practice, interest was charged retroactively from day one); they didn't understand why IOF tax and interest showed up on separate dates on the statement; and they didn't know the product offered 24/7 emergency credit with no approval needed.
I presented the data to my design leadership first, refined the argument, and then brought it together to PM, tech, and data. The rule was deliberate: wireframes first spark aesthetic debate. Data first sparks strategic debate.
When I explained the interest retroactivity rule, PM and dev were both surprised: they admitted they themselves had been using the product the wrong way. Once the people who worked on the product didn't understand how it worked, there was no longer any way to argue it was a communication problem. It was a structural failure. From that point on, there was consensus.
The central hypothesis was straightforward: business owners already know how to operate with a credit card. They understand open and closed billing cycles, they know next month brings a bill to pay. If I could transfer that mental model onto Limite da Conta, the product would stop being confusing. The hypothesis was validated in testing. The line that confirmed it wasn't "it looks nicer," it was "now I know what I'll owe and I can plan for it. I can use it again without being afraid."
Previous structure. No hierarchy, no visual states, no cost anticipation.
1. Main card: the month as an open or closed bill: The monthly cycle treated like a credit card statement: current month, closing date, status, and the full breakdown: projected interest, active bonus discount, total due. The business owner sees the real cost before being charged.
Main card: no usage (R$0), with active bonus (zero interest, total R$20.64), and expired bonus (R$200.27 visible before the charge).
2. Bonus card: visual progress as an early warning: A five-segment bar filled in per day of use. Once all five interest-free days are used, the label switches from "Active" to "Expired" and explanatory text appears. Intermediate states build progressive urgency without requiring active reading. In testing, validation came through spontaneous comments: "it's like the Vivo phone plan bonus."
Bonus card: available, active with 1 day used, and expired, with explanatory text about interest retroactivity.
3. Upcoming charges: anticipating fees before they hit the statement: IOF and interest on different dates, each with its own name, date, and amount, shown before the charge happens. Without this, customers reached their statement confused about the charges. With no balance available, the credit limit itself covered the interest, creating an invisible debt cycle.
Upcoming charges section: IOF (October 2) and interest (October 5) with separate dates and amounts shown before the charge.
4. History: the credit limit's billing statement: All monthly cycles in a list: amount charged, days used, status (open, charged, closed). The same logic as checking past credit card statements, applied to the account credit limit.
History: each month displayed as a row, showing the amount, days in use, and status.
5. Charge detail: every cent explained: Two separate cards for IOF and interest, each showing the calculation period, days in use, rate applied, bonus discount, and total. A full statement for the credit limit, with the same level of transparency as any credit card bill.
Details: September was charged (interest waived by the bonus, total: R$0.00), and October is still open (estimated total: R$200.27 without an active bonus).
The project's biggest challenge wasn't in the interface. It was a decades-old processing rule. A customer would use the credit line from Tuesday to Friday, deposit money on Saturday thinking they were back in the clear, and the bank would only process the settlement on Monday. Result: 7 days of usage, expired bonus, interest charged retroactively on every one of those days. It wasn't a communication problem: it was a product failure.
We escalated to credit and risk leadership and formed a working group with engineering. Because it was a pilot, with a smaller, controlled customer base, the credit team understood that transparency now meant retention later. A customer who deposits on Saturday exits the credit line on Saturday. The project's biggest impact was set in motion by the design process itself.
Contact rate dropped from 0.21% to 0.08%: the product became self-explanatory. The portfolio grew from R$5.6MM to R$9.3MM. More business owners trusted the product enough to use credit for the first time. And 7-day activation rose from 17% to 24.4%. Limite da Conta became the business owner's first credit experience within Emps, not an option they avoided out of caution.