A dollar card without the borders

My Aza's virtual dollar card lets Africans pay for anything, anywhere, in USD — from Netflix subscriptions to overseas software. I designed the card creation, funding and spend-management experience for first-time cross-border spenders.

Most virtual-card products in the region were built by engineers for other engineers. The result was a great API and a scary UI. Everyday users were funding cards, then getting stuck on the very first international transaction because they didn't understand FX or decline reasons.

1. 01Wrote plain-language decline explanations for every failure mode Stripe and Mastercard could throw at us.
2. 02Designed a card page that shows a real dollar balance, real recent spend, and one clear next action — nothing else.
3. 03Prototyped the funding flow at 320px width to make sure it worked on the phones our users actually held.
4. 04Built spending controls and instant lock/unlock so users felt in charge, not exposed.

Virtual cards are 80% copywriting and 20% design. The interface only needs to do a few things well — the trust is built in the sentences that appear when something goes sideways.