When Customers Outgrow Their Bank

We built Qik to give people a simpler, more accessible way to bank. But as our customers grew, their expectations began to change.

One customer put it simply: “Qik was the bank I needed when I was starting out. But now, I need more.”

That stayed with me. It was not a rejection of what we had built. It was an invitation to think about what came next.

Qik Pro became our response. My role was to help turn that customer insight into a product direction, bring the right disciplines together, and carry a shared vision through to launch.

Finding an opportunity we had not planned for

Qik Pro was not originally on our roadmap. And at first, I did not believe entering the affluent segment with another premium card was the right move. Established banks already had strong offerings. I could not see a compelling reason for customers to choose us if we were simply entering the same competition.

Discovery changed how I saw the opportunity. The customers we were discussing were not an audience we needed to go out and find. They were already banking with Qik.

That shifted the question. Rather than asking how to attract a more affluent customer, we began asking how to remain relevant to the people who had already chosen us.

What emerged was more interesting than an income segment. We saw a mindset: people who invested deeply in the things that mattered to them. That could mean building a business, choosing better equipment for a sport they loved, or taking their passion for music further. They wanted more from those experiences, and increasingly, from their bank.

I advocated for building a proposition around that mindset instead of following the conventions of premium banking. We called these customers Pro.

This gave us a different direction. We did not need to become a more exclusive bank. We needed to make Qik more valuable to people whose needs were evolving.

The card became the key to the ecosystem

That distinction shaped the product. A new card with a longer list of benefits would not be enough. Becoming Pro needed to improve the broader relationship with Qik.

We designed a connected offering that brought together personalized cashback, stronger returns on savings accounts and certificates of deposit, preferred loan rates, travel benefits, and more personalized service.

The card became the key to that ecosystem, rather than the whole proposition.

Becoming Pro also changed the app itself. The interface shifted to a deep blue theme, with additional features and a reorganized experience tailored to these customers. We wanted the change to be useful as well as visible, bringing what mattered to them closer to the surface while keeping the familiarity and simplicity of Qik.

Cobalt, our design language system, provided the foundation for that evolution, allowing us to adapt the experience while keeping it connected to the broader Qik product.

For me, the challenge was keeping the proposition coherent as the work expanded across products, teams, and partners. Each benefit needed to make sense on its own, but also contribute to a relationship customers could understand and value.

Giving customers a choice in how they are rewarded

Cashback was one place where that thinking became tangible.

Instead of deciding that every Pro customer should value the same rewards, we gave people a choice: concentrate a higher cashback rate in one category or distribute it across two.

That flexibility reflected the proposition we were building. People could shape part of the experience around what mattered to them.

But flexibility also introduces decisions. Our job was to make those decisions feel straightforward. The team designed a direct comparison between the options so customers could understand the difference without having to work through a complicated rewards structure.

It was a small expression of a larger principle: offering more should not mean making banking harder to understand.

Designing around people’s lives

I also wanted us to think beyond banking categories. Customers do not experience their lives as separate collections of financial products. They are planning trips, developing interests, and working toward something that matters to them.

That led me to introduce Pro Routines: connected experiences built around those interests.

Travel was the first direction we developed. Buying a plane ticket could become the beginning of a journey with Qik, rather than simply a transaction that earned a reward.

Our vision connected moments before, during, and after the trip. We could ask about their plans, surface relevant salon or barbershop benefits before departure, help coordinate the airport experience through Before Boarding, and offer useful recommendations and discounts at the destination.

The experience would continue when customers returned home, with a personalized summary of their trip expenses to help them understand what they had spent. Eligible customers could then choose to finance those expenses through a loan, with clear terms to support that decision.

That brought the routine back to the role of the bank: helping people prepare for an experience, enjoy it, and manage its financial impact afterward.

The value was in how those moments worked together. Benefits that might otherwise sit unnoticed in a list could become relevant when someone actually needed them.

Giving the vision a path to delivery

The complete travel routine became a direction for the experience, grounded in the banking and travel benefits available through Qik Pro. It was not a claim that every part of the journey was automated at launch.

Connecting that journey meant considering more than what appeared in the app. Trip details, eligibility, reservations, partner services, and communication all affected whether the experience could deliver on its promise.

My responsibility was to keep the ambition clear while helping the team connect it to those realities. We needed a compelling direction for where Pro could go, alongside a coherent offering customers could use today.

Travel gave us a starting point. Additional routines remained part of the vision for how the ecosystem could grow.

Making it a shared product ambition

Delivering Qik Pro required more than agreement on a design direction. It required different disciplines to understand what we were trying to change for customers and how their work contributed to it.

Product and experience design, research, graphic design, brand, content, service, and technology all helped shape the proposition. The work extended from the app and physical card to customer communications, partner experiences, and even the launch event.

I focused on giving the team a shared frame for decisions and the confidence to challenge ideas that did not support it. Their involvement started with understanding the opportunity, not simply producing the materials needed to announce it.

One of the most rewarding parts was seeing designers expand their influence beyond individual touchpoints. They were helping define what the offering should be and how its different parts could work together.

The launch event became another expression of that shared work. It was an opportunity to introduce the experience we had built with the same care we had put into the product itself.

A bank designed to grow with its customers

Within two months of launch, Qik Pro reached the customer target we had set for the entire year. Its Net Promoter Score exceeded 85.

Those results gave us an encouraging early signal: the proposition was attracting customers faster than planned, and their response to the experience was strong.

For me, they also brought the story back to the discovery that started it all. These customers were already with us. We had needed to understand what was changing in their lives and give them a reason to keep growing with Qik.

The experience reinforced something important in my own leadership: having a clear point of view matters, but so does being willing to change it. I began questioning whether we should enter this space at all. Listening to our customers helped me see a different opportunity. My responsibility became giving that opportunity direction and bringing the team together to deliver it.

We did not set out to build a more exclusive bank. We set out to build a banking relationship that could grow alongside the people who had chosen Qik.