INDUSTRY PROJECT · 2017 TO 2018

M&T Bank Digital Banking

Two native banking apps plus an Online Banking UI upgrade, rebuilt from a failing vendor app and delivered to hundreds of thousands of Small Business and Retail customers — part of five years in M&T's digital space, from the legacy vendor app through the post-launch mobile check deposit phase I led. I was not the designer on this project. I worked alongside the design team through every sprint, and that is where my design practice started.

ROLE

Functional BA, QA & UAT Lead

CLIENT

M&T Bank, Buffalo NY

PLATFORMS

iOS, Android, Online Banking

MY AREAS

Transfers, Account Summary, Alerts, Bill Pay, Zelle, Mobile Check Deposit

SCALE

~600K to 800K active digital customers

~2.3

STORE RATING, LEGACY APP

→

4.9

APP RATING TODAY

~800K

ACTIVE DIGITAL CUSTOMERS AT THE TIME

11

MONTHS TO NATIVE LAUNCH

M&T Bank Digital Banking

INDUSTRY PROJECT · 2017 TO 2018

M&T Bank Digital Banking

ROLE

Functional BA, QA & UAT Lead

CLIENT

M&T Bank, Buffalo NY

PLATFORMS

iOS, Android, Online Banking

MY AREAS

Transfers, Account Summary, Alerts, Bill Pay, Zelle, Mobile Check Deposit

SCALE

~600K to 800K active digital customers

~2.3

STORE RATING, LEGACY APP

→

4.9

APP RATING TODAY

~800K

ACTIVE DIGITAL CUSTOMERS AT THE TIME

11

MONTHS TO NATIVE LAUNCH

M&T Bank Digital Banking

INDUSTRY PROJECT · 2017 TO 2018

M&T Bank Digital Banking

ROLE

Functional BA, QA & UAT Lead

CLIENT

M&T Bank, Buffalo NY

PLATFORMS

iOS, Android, Online Banking

MY AREAS

Transfers, Account Summary, Alerts, Bill Pay, Zelle, Mobile Check Deposit

SCALE

~600K to 800K active digital customers

~2.3

STORE RATING, LEGACY APP

→

4.9

APP RATING TODAY

~800K

ACTIVE DIGITAL CUSTOMERS AT THE TIME

11

MONTHS TO NATIVE LAUNCH

M&T Bank Digital Banking

Context

This rebuild sits in the middle of five years I spent in M&T's digital banking space. Before the native project began, I had led QA and UAT for the legacy vendor app and the older Online Banking UI, which gave me SME-level knowledge of their functional gaps and user pain points. When M&T decided to build its first-ever in-house native apps, replacing the vendor product entirely, that experience earned me a seat in product decisions from day one: brainstorming, project planning, backlog prioritization, sprint planning. I carried it through the rebuild as a dual-role Functional Business System Analyst, QA and UAT Lead inside a Scrum team, working daily with product managers, designers, UX analysts across 11 sprints. Phase one covered the core of everyday banking: account summary, transfers, bill pay, alert management, sending money with Zelle.

The Problem

The legacy hybrid app was hurting the bank: crashing frequently, drawing waves of negative reviews, complaints, costing customers. And this rebuild had no safety net. It was the bank's first in-house native build, on a fixed 11-month runway, where a defect in a payment flow isn't a bug ticket, it's someone's money.

~2.3

STORE RATING, LEGACY APP

→

4.9

APP RATING TODAY

~800K

ACTIVE DIGITAL CUSTOMERS

11

MONTHS TO NATIVE LAUNCH

What I Did

Research and data that shaped what got built

I supported the product and research teams with Adobe Analytics data on transfer volumes, feature adoption, and platform split, so prioritisation was grounded in what customers actually did rather than what the room assumed. The same data settled which devices and platforms we had to cover.

Design review and feasibility feedback

I sat in design reviews and gave feedback from the system side: what the API could actually return, what the mainframe would not, how real account data renders when a value is long, empty, or negative. A screen that works with sample data and breaks with production data is worth catching in review, not in build.

Reviewing flows for the states nobody mapped

I worked through the user flows with the business analyst, walking each path against how the systems actually behaved. Most of what I added was the branches that were missing: what the customer sees when a transfer is declined, when a payee cannot be verified, when a balance has not refreshed. The happy path was mapped. The failure paths were where the gaps were.

Translating design into buildable requirements

I wrote user stories, acceptance criteria from the design team's specs, converting business requirements into functional requirements the Scrum team could build, I could test.

Cross-platform quality ownership

In SIT, the job was to break the system: hunting edge cases, error states, failure paths across UI, API, web services, database layers on iOS, Android, Online Banking, with mainframe test data built from production pulls and brand-new profiles so the apps worked for new and existing customers alike.

Validation with real users

I ran acceptance testing with 50+ participants across business groups, wrote the test plan, set up the shared environment, and led a pre-production pilot in a production-mirrored environment before launch. Watching people use the built app is where I found out which parts of the design held up and which did not.

Delivery leadership at scale

I owned the system test plan, test data management, defect management, led a 15-member offshore QA team, supported the automation team, then carried the product through pilot, release, production validation.

Integration with Online Banking

The native apps had to integrate cleanly with the Online Banking UI upgrade running in parallel, owned by another team. I supported that workstream, validating the handshake between mobile and web so customers moved between platforms without friction.

Outcome

M&T shipped its first in-house native iOS and Android apps in 11 months, alongside the upgraded Online Banking platform, serving roughly 600K to 800K active digital customers. A crash-prone vendor app became a stable native experience. A second phase followed, adding mobile check deposit and alerts on the same architecture, a phase I stayed on to lead.

Takeaways

Delivery discipline is what got two native apps out the door in 11 months. What it taught me is why I design the way I do.

Impact:

The rebuild replaced a failing vendor app with M&T's first in-house native experience. Shipping it reshaped how the team worked:

• Shifted testing left — QA in planning from sprint one is why 11 months was enough

• Settled prioritization with data — Adobe Analytics numbers ended debates stakeholder intuition could not

• Proved the foundation — phase two shipped mobile check deposit, alerts on the same architecture

• Set the quality bar — from a 2.3-rated legacy app to the standard behind today's 4.9

What I learned:

The most valuable lessons came from sitting between disciplines. Leading QA on the legacy app meant I knew exactly where users struggled before the first sprint started — deep knowledge of a failing product is a design asset. Breaking the system in SIT taught me that edge cases and error states are the real design surface, not the happy path. And facilitating UAT with 50+ real users showed me that no spec survives contact with actual behavior — validation is a habit, not a phase. Quality, I learned, is a product decision made early, not a gate at the end.

The Bridge to Product Design

This project is where I stopped only validating products, started shaping them. Sitting in backlog prioritization with usage data, writing acceptance criteria against design specs, watching real customers react in UAT taught me where designs break in the real world.

It is why I moved into Product Design: to influence direction earlier in the lifecycle, not just verify it at the end. And it is why I design for the failed transfer, the missed alert, the rejected session, not just the happy path. Breaking systems in SIT taught me to design for what goes wrong; watching 50+ real users in UAT taught me to design for how people actually behave.

Outcome

M&T shipped its first in-house native iOS, Android banking apps in 11 months, alongside the upgraded Online Banking platform, serving roughly 600K to 800K active digital banking customers at the time, based on the usage analytics I worked with in my BA role. The rebuild replaced a poorly rated, crash-prone vendor app with a stable native experience customers praised, setting the foundation for an app that holds a 4.9 rating today. The foundation held: a second phase followed, extending the apps with mobile check deposit and mobile alerts on the same architecture, test infrastructure. The project remains one of the most appreciated deliveries of my career, reflected in the LinkedIn recommendations from stakeholders I worked with.

Takeaways

Delivery discipline is what got two native apps out the door in 11 months. What it taught me is why I design the way I do.

Impact:

The rebuild replaced a failing vendor app with M&T's first in-house native experience. Shipping it reshaped how the team worked:

• Shifted testing left — QA in planning from sprint one is why 11 months was enough

• Settled prioritization with data — Adobe Analytics numbers ended debates stakeholder intuition could not

• Proved the foundation — phase two shipped mobile check deposit, alerts on the same architecture

• Set the quality bar — from a 2.3-rated legacy app to the standard behind today's 4.9

What I learned:

The Bridge to Product Design

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