02 Platform PM · Banking · Current

Redesigning how a bank talks to millions of customers

Role — Delivery lead (Stage 1) · Discovery contributor (Stage 2) Where — A Big Five Canadian bank Status — Stage 1 in delivery · Stage 2 in discovery
Client anonymized while the engagement is active. Happy to go deeper in conversation.

The problem

How does a bank talk to millions of customers? Mostly, badly. User research found customers staring down a flat, unprioritized inbox (58+ unread messages was routine) where regulatory notices buried everything else. And the bank's most reliable way to get your attention was a takeover screen at login. If you've ever just wanted to check your balance and had to click through an offer first, you know the feeling. I bank there too. It annoyed me personally.

The overwhelm wasn't just annoying, either. Research linked it directly to avoidable support calls. Meanwhile, the messages that actually need action (fraud alerts, KYC, AML) had no persistent home at all. They were scattered across separate hubs that customers never visit.

Before Login takeover screen interrupts every visit regulatory notice marketing offer fraud alert (buried) regulatory notice marketing offer 58+ unread… After Actionable fraud · KYC · AML — one home Transactions redesigned view + filters Notices low-value regulatory, foldered No takeover required
From a flat pile plus interruptions, to a prioritized hub where critical items stop competing with marketing for attention.

Stage 1: making the pile navigable

I was delivery lead for Stage 1 of the redesign: filters, a dedicated folder for low-value regulatory notices, and a redesigned transaction view, all targeting a measurable cut in avoidable inbound calls. Unglamorous, foundational work. Somebody has to make the pile navigable before anyone gets to make it smart.

Stage 2: giving critical messages a home

In Stage 2 discovery, I was a significant contributor to the bigger idea: a persistent, actionable notifications tab for fraud, KYC, and AML. The insight was that the interruption problem and the buried-messages problem were the same problem. Critical items had nowhere to live, so everything fought for the front door.

One political reality worth sharing: marketing owns the takeover mechanism, and removing it was not a fight worth having (we tried the convincing; it's a different beast). So instead of fighting, we built the alternative. Teach customers that the hub is where things live, and let the old pattern fade on its own rather than forcing the org to kill it.

Sometimes the winning product move is not winning the argument. It's building the thing that makes the argument obsolete.

The real work: alignment at bank scale

Platform work at a bank is 20% design and 80% getting people to agree. I co-developed the 2x2 prioritization framework that let eight competing product teams argue about message placement productively, with evidence instead of seniority. I drove the requirements conversations across fraud, operations, analytics, and marketing, while six risk and compliance functions aligned on regulatory message handling. That framework also secured senior stakeholder approval to expand Stage 2 beyond its fraud-only baseline.

What this shows

Platform product management at scale, in a regulated environment: research-grounded problem framing, phased delivery, and stakeholder alignment as a first-class product skill. Mostly that last one.

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