Raiffeisen Bank International

Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is a key player in Central and Eastern Europe’s banking landscape, operating across 11 countries—each with its own language, culture, and unique relationship with personal and digital finance.
When I joined RBI, I was excited to contribute to a project with such scale and impact. However, I was surprised to discover that UX research didn’t yet exist within the organization.
For a product serving such diverse markets, understanding users deeply was not just valuable—it was essential.
I saw an opportunity to fill this gap and took the initiative to build a UX research process from the ground up.
At the time, each country had developed its website independently, leading to a fragmented and inconsistent digital experience across the group.
The core challenge was clear: How do we create a unified solution that respects local differences while delivering a consistent, high-quality user experience across all markets?

RBI operates across multiple countries, each with its own language, culture, and approach to finance. In total, there are 18 million customers throughout the network. But also, throughout the years, each network unit had developed its own website independently. This led to a lack of consistency across the group’s digital presence.‍
‍To address these issues, we began building a new CMS that would be then adopted by all network units. The goal was to establish a consistent, flexible framework that could support all markets while maintaining local relevance across Raiffeisen’s international network.
The brand new CMS should make sites more consistent throughout the network units, internal and external websites.
However, it was the peak of the pandemic, which made UX research quite tricky since we couldn't travel to each country to test their individual solutions. We needed to find a way to be able to test the new CMS we were developing, and it all had to be done remotely.

Eastern Europe is a region that, despite its cultural and economic diversity, remains significantly under-researched in the field of UX.
‍
Designing for such complexity posed a unique challenge—but also a tremendous opportunity. Here are some of the key obstacles we faced:‍
‍• A cross-border project during lockdown, involving 12 Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries—regions often overlooked in global UX research‍
‍• Low UX maturity within the organisation, particularly when it came to user research practices‍
‍• Outdated design tools that couldn’t support a modern, scalable workflow. We also didn't have means to do research remotely, especially not when it came to mobile
• High resistance to change across various teams and process levels, making it difficult to introduce new methods and tools.

As the saying goes, “In every difficulty lies opportunity.”  This project became a catalyst for introducing user-centered thinking and building a stronger, research-driven design foundation at scale—tailored to one of the most diverse and dynamic regions in Europe.

Introducing UX research at Raiffeisen Bank International meant bringing innovation into well-established teams and processes. With no prior UX research practice in place, I took the initiative to build a UX research framework from the ground up.
This involved not only creating methods and workflows but also fostering a culture of design and research across multidisciplinary teams.‍‍
‍The goal was to embed user-centered thinking into the organization and empower teams to make more informed, user-driven decisions across multiple countries.
We also needed a solution that worked fully remotely, for desktop and mobile, and could be adopted by different teams.

As we built the foundation for a more user-centered approach, we also focused on modernizing our tools and methods to support the future of design at scale.

• We implemented a new UX research process, enabling more consistent, insight-driven decisions across teams.
• Introduced a modern design toolset, including Figma and FigJam, to streamline collaboration and accelerate design workflows.
• Facilitated remote UX research with UserTesting across both desktop and mobile platforms—crucial during the lockdown and for working across multiple countries.
• Took Figma prototyping to the next level, using advanced techniques, interactions, and smart components to simulate real user journeys.
• Conducted a deep dive into high-fidelity prototypes, ensuring our designs were both testable and production-ready.

As part of the CMS project, we formed a dedicated task force that brought together UI design, UX research, and content strategy.
Recognising that good UX goes beyond just the interface, we worked closely with the content strategy team to co-develop page blueprints from scratch, ensuring both design and messaging were aligned from the beginning.
Importantly, we tested early—before development began—which allowed us to validate core assumptions and make meaningful improvements without costly rework.

Our research included both targeted functionality tests (such as loan calculators or location maps) and broader content flow evaluations, like full-page prototypes on topics such as currency exchange and international transfers. We looked at whether users could interpret graphs, understand available features, and identify key information with ease.

To explore this, we built highly interactive Figma prototypes with components like tabs, sliders, carousels, and quick-start navigation.
These simulations allowed users to explore features like goal-based savings flows, tailored for different audience needs.
All tests were conducted via UserTesting remotely, covering both desktop and mobile experiences. This helped us gather rich insights across markets efficiently, even under pandemic restrictions.

In complex, multi-country projects, one of the biggest challenges isn’t just gathering insights—it’s communicating them effectively to stakeholders and aligning teams around clear next steps.
To ensure clarity and actionability, thorough documentation was essential. User testing often revealed multiple issues per session, so I developed a 2-step prioritization matrix to help teams quickly understand what needed to be addressed, and when.

‍Step 1: Evaluate the severity of the issue:
🟢 Minor – low impact
🟡 Moderate – requires attention
🔴 Critical – must be addressed immediately

‍Step 2: Assess the level of effort to resolve the issue:
Small | Medium | Large | Extra Large

This framework enabled us to easily spot quick wins—for instance, a critical issue (🔴) that required only a small effort to fix could be tackled right away.
On the other hand, a low-impact issue that required significant development effort could be deprioritised.

This simple but effective method became a game changer in how we communicated findings. It helped stakeholders understand priorities at a glance and empowered product teams to make faster, more strategic decisions.

Successfully integrating UX research into a large, multi-national organization required more than just tools and methods—it was about building trust, alignment, and shared purpose across teams.
‍
• We worked to ensure product and design teams embraced the research process, seeing its value in shaping better user experiences.
• We emphasized that UX/UI design and content strategy must evolve together—you can’t design meaningful interfaces without meaningful content.
• We leveraged both qualitative and quantitative research to fill knowledge gaps and validate design decisions.
• We made UX research work within an agile environment, embedding it into sprints and making it actionable at every stage.

• Break the Cycle: Challenge the status quo by introducing innovation into well-established teams and processes.
• Keep Pushing: Change doesn’t happen overnight—persistence and consistency are essential when facing resistance.
• Build the Culture: Nurture a shared design and research mindset across multidisciplinary teams to create lasting impact.
• Level Up the Craft: Combine UX research insights with advanced, high-fidelity Figma prototypes to deliver smarter, more user-centered solutions.