Lender Documents Management Tool

Enabling scalable, self-serve document management for B2B financial services

Overview

The Lender Documents Management Tool was designed as a back-office SaaS solution enabling lenders to create, manage, and maintain their own legal and customer-facing documents within the platform.

Previously, document updates and onboarding required heavy involvement from internal engineering teams, creating bottlenecks and increasing operational costs. This became particularly critical in the context of upcoming GDPR regulations, which required frequent updates to legal content and policies.

The goal was to shift from a service-led model to a self-serve product experience, giving lenders full control over their documents while improving scalability on our side.

My Role

Product Designer

I led the end-to-end design process, including:

• product discovery and stakeholder workshops

• user research with lenders and internal teams

• defining UX strategy and workflows

• designing wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity interfaces

• supporting validation and iterative delivery

• contributing to the design system and UI library

The Challenge

The core challenge was both product and behavioural.

From a product perspective, we needed to design a system that could support:

• complex legal documents (e.g. credit agreements, privacy policies)

• multiple user types (lenders and white-label clients)

• secure, compliant, and auditable workflows

From a business perspective, we needed to validate whether lenders would be willing to take ownership of document management, a responsibility previously handled by our internal teams.

The solution also had to integrate seamlessly into the customer journey, ensuring that document updates would not disrupt the end-user experience.

Discovery & Assumptions

We began by defining and validating key assumptions around:

• lenders’ willingness to manage their own documents

• the feasibility of embedding their internal processes into our platform

• the need for centralised document management

• expectations around version control, approvals, and audit history

To validate these, we conducted lender interviews to understand:

• how documents were currently created and maintained

• who was involved in the process

• how often updates occurred

• where inefficiencies and risks existed

We translated these insights into “How Might We” problem statements, which guided the design direction and prioritisation.

Research & Exploration

To inform the solution, we explored:

• competitor offerings in the lending space

• existing document management systems

• best practices for handling versioning, permissions, and workflows

These insights helped define a feature set that balanced usability, compliance, and flexibility.

Design & Validation

I developed interactive wireframes and prototypes to validate key workflows with both internal stakeholders and prospective users.

Testing focused on:

• clarity of document management workflows

• ease of editing and publishing

• visibility of document status and lifecycle

Design iterations were informed by continuous feedback across multiple stages of development, ensuring the product addressed both user needs and regulatory requirements.

MVP Strategy

To reduce risk, we initially released the tool as an internal MVP, allowing internal teams to test usability, feasibility, and compliance constraints before exposing it to lenders.

The MVP focused on core functionality:

• creating and editing documents

• saving drafts and publishing

• managing document states and visibility

This allowed us to validate the core interaction model in a controlled environment.

Post-MVP & Iteration

Following a successful internal pilot, the product evolved into a fully externalised tool for lenders, with additional capabilities including:

• version control and audit history

• publishing schedules

• approval and authorisation workflows

• basic document styling

• document import functionality

The product continued to evolve through ongoing feedback loops with lenders, shaping a more robust and flexible solution over time.

Impact

The tool delivered both business and operational impact:

• Enabled lenders to independently manage their documents in real time

• Reduced reliance on engineering teams, improving scalability

• Lowered operational costs related to onboarding and updates

• Improved compliance readiness, particularly around GDPR requirements

• Strengthened relationships with lenders through increased ownership and flexibility

Design System Contribution

As part of this work, I contributed to building a scalable design system based on atomic design principles, supporting faster delivery and consistency across back-office tools.

This included:

• defining reusable UI components

• establishing layout patterns and constraints

• improving collaboration between design and engineering