Simple Invest — Golan Sarig

ABOUT

THE CLIENT

UOB — one of Southeast Asia's leading banks — had already launched Simple Invest in Singapore as a self-serve wealth management product. The next phase: scale to Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, each with distinct regulatory requirements, languages, and investment product availability.

THE PROJECT

Expand UOB's Simple Invest platform from Singapore to three additional regional markets. Design localized UI experiences, adapt product flows for country-specific regulations and user behaviours, and deliver a consistent yet contextually appropriate investment experience across all four markets.

Simple Invest regional expansion overview

PROCESS

01 Exploration & Discovery

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Audited the existing Singapore Simple Invest product to identify what was market-agnostic vs. Singapore-specific. Worked with regional product and legal teams to map regulatory constraints per country — understanding where UI flexibility existed and where flows were mandated.

02 Localization & Iteration

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Designed localized UI variants for each market — adapting language handling, layout density, risk disclosure flows, and product category presentation to local context. Maintained a shared component system to ensure design consistency while accommodating meaningful regional differences.

03 Cross-Regional Collaboration

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Coordinated with product managers, engineers, and legal representatives across 4 countries simultaneously. Maintained design alignment across markets while navigating different release timelines, compliance reviews, and local stakeholder feedback cycles — ensuring the Singapore baseline remained coherent with each localized variant.

KEY FEATURES

Self-Serve Investment Capabilities

End-to-end investment flow designed for non-advised, self-directed customers — from product discovery and risk profiling to order placement and portfolio tracking.

Localized UI Experiences

Country-specific UI adaptations covering language, regulatory disclosures, product availability, and cultural UI preferences — ensuring each market felt native, not adapted.

IMPACT

BUSINESS

Expanded UOB's wealth management reach to 3 new regional markets
Enabled self-serve customer acquisition without relationship manager overhead
Reduced time-to-market for regional launches through shared design system

DESIGN

Established scalable localization patterns reusable across future UOB products
Maintained visual and interaction consistency across all 4 country variants
Streamlined handoff with a single multi-market component library

TECHNOLOGY

Reduced engineering complexity through shared component architecture
Design specs aligned with existing UOB mobile engineering frameworks
Enabled parallel development across markets without design bottlenecks

KEY TAKEAWAYS

LOCALIZATION

Localisation is more than translation — layout, hierarchy, and metaphors differ by market
Early legal alignment saves significant late-stage redesign
Regional user research reveals unexpected behavioural differences

SCALABILITY

Invest in a shared component foundation before market-specific work begins
Atomic design thinking enables rapid variant generation with minimal drift
Documentation designed for handoff, not just internal reference

COLLABORATION

Multi-timezone stakeholder management requires proactive async communication
Trust is built through transparent decision logs, not just deliverables
Regional champions within each country team accelerate alignment

SUMMARY

Led the UX and UI expansion of UOB's Simple Invest platform from Singapore to Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia — delivering localized self-serve investment experiences tailored to each market's regulatory environment and user expectations. Designed a scalable multi-market system that reduced engineering overhead, maintained brand consistency, and gave UOB a repeatable playbook for future regional product launches.

KEY CONTRIBUTIONS

Lead UX/UI Designer

End-to-end design across all 4 regional markets

Stakeholder Management

Cross-regional product, legal, and engineering alignment

Simple Invest: Self-Serve Capabilities to Regional Markets