S Shasa Smith Senior Product Designer

Payments, trust, regulated systems

Designing financial systems people trust.

Over eight years at CommBank, Deloitte, and Moodle, I turn operational complexity into experiences that feel calm, clear, and dependable.

Currently designing payments at CommBank
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I have omitted and obfuscated confidential information in these case studies. The views expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of my employers and clients.

8+

Years across CommBank, Deloitte, and Moodle

From public-sector transformation to payment products and broker platforms at scale.

300M+

Users on a platform shaped by my research

Scaled UX research practices and design-system thinking across a global product used in 237 countries.

2024

Ultimate State Award

Commonwealth Bank's highest internal design recognition, awarded for delivering an excellent experience to customers.

Selected work

Four case studies across payments, enterprise B2B and AI

Each project deals with genuine constraints: regulation, scale and operational complexity. Deeper walkthroughs are available privately when useful.

01

Cross-border payments

Dandelion

Rebuilt CommBank's international transfer experience around reassurance, visibility, and seamless infrastructure. The design challenge was not speed alone. It was making customers feel safe sending value.

  • Lead product designer
  • Payments + compliance
100%
Task completion in usability testing
22
Additional corridors with route-specific requirements
3
Delivery methods: bank deposit, digital wallet, and cash pick-up
Read the full case study
Dandelion transfer flow showing country, amount, and live FX calculation
Dandelion transfer confirmation and tracking states

From live FX and upfront requirements to post-transfer tracking, the experience was redesigned as one continuous trust-building journey.

02

Enterprise B2B platform

CommBroker

Transformed an outdated broker portal into a working tool by redesigning the information architecture, simplifying navigation, and making the platform the source of truth again.

  • Lead Product Designer
  • Complete redesign
98%
Discoverability success in concept testing
219
Brokers and assistants across research and validation
36%
Reduction in content pages through IA restructure
Read the full case study
CommBroker home screen with quick actions, updates, and support
CommBroker resource centre page with categories and search

The strongest move in this project was structural, not stylistic: clearer IA, a central resource centre, and better broker mental-model alignment.

03

Responsible AI

Broker Assist

Designed CommBank's first broker-facing Gen AI pilot to answer scenario-based policy questions with guardrails, source transparency, and measurable operational value.

  • Lead product designer
  • Responsible AI pilot
200
Brokers engaged in pilot testing
85%
Rated the pilot experience as excellent
1st
Gen AI pilot informing CommBank policy
Read the full case study
Broker Assist interface answering a policy question with an attributed source
Broker Assist responsive interface across desktop and mobile

The design bet was simple: if brokers could trust the answer and its source, they would stop calling for routine scenario clarification.

04

Consumer payments behaviour

Smart & Social

Designed Request Payment, Split Expenses, and Financial Companion integration to bring shared-money behaviour into the bank experience instead of leaving it to messages, spreadsheets, and third-party tools.

  • Lead Product Designer
  • Concept to beta
30s
Under 30 seconds to complete the request and receive flows
90%
Rated the experience as excellent in usability testing
1st
CommBank feature of its kind
Read the full case study
Smart and Social request and split flows across mobile screens
Financial Companion integration for shared money management

The core insight was behavioural: shared-money experiences get adopted when they reduce awkwardness, reminders, and reconciliation work.

About

Eight years solving complex problems

I have worked across public-sector transformation, global UX research, enterprise platforms, and financial products. The common thread is clarity: helping people move through complex systems without feeling lost, punished, or overwhelmed.

At CommBank, that has meant redesigning international transfers, leading broker-platform work, shaping responsible AI pilots, and building social-payment concepts around real behaviour. Earlier roles at Deloitte and Moodle strengthened the way I work across research, systems, facilitation, and product direction.

My role has increasingly been to turn ambiguity into direction: framing the problem, aligning product, engineering, risk, and research, and helping teams make the structural decisions that shape what ultimately ships.

Leadership in practice

  • Mentored junior and mid-level designers inside CommBank
  • Led critiques, workshops, and alignment sessions across design, product, risk, and engineering
  • Championed improving cross functional ways of working across CommBank

Approach

Design for regulated domains is less about style and more about judgment.

The strongest products I have worked on did not get better because the interface became prettier. They got better because the structure became clearer, the decisions became easier, and the constraints were turned into design inputs early.

Principle 01

Design trust, not just flow.

In payments, trust is a feature. The moments that matter most are rarely the happy path. They are the moments where the user asks: what happens now, can I rely on this, and what do I do if something goes wrong?

Principle 02

Fix the structure before the surface.

IA, navigation, content hierarchy, and mental models usually determine whether a product is usable long before the polish layer arrives. That is why I start with problem framing, systems, and evidence before visual refinement.

Principle 03

Bring the right people in early.

Legal, risk, compliance, and engineering are not downstream sign-off functions. They are design partners. The best work in regulated systems comes from bringing those voices in early enough to influence the shape of the product.

Clients & organisations

From banking to government.

Selected organisations where I have designed digital products, services, and internal tools across regulated, operationally complex environments.

Financial services

  • Commonwealth Bank
  • Deloitte
  • RAC Insurance

Government

  • ACT Government
  • WA Government
  • City of Stirling

Education

  • Moodle
  • Curtin University
  • Murdoch University

Resources & energy

  • Rio Tinto
  • BHP
  • Chevron

Services & utilities

  • Compass Group
  • Synergy
  • Water Corporation

Recognition

Recent awards and recognitions

2024

Ultimate State Award

Commonwealth Bank's highest internal design recognition, awarded for delivering an excellent experience to customers.

2023

Good Design Award, Green Tick

Recognised for user-centred design impact in financial services through work that balanced customer trust with regulatory complexity.

2021

Deloitte Innovation Award

Awarded internally for excellence in design thinking and innovative problem solving across large client engagements.

Contact

Always interested in what's being built in payments and fintech.

Contact me at hello@shasamichael.com or send a DM on LinkedIn.

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