Introducing NALA 3.0 - The Next Chapter. Today, I’m incredibly proud to introduce NALA 3.0 — our biggest product update yet, and a major step forward on our mission to build payments for #TheNextBillion. Thread 🧵

This isn’t just a redesign. It’s a rebuild. And a foundation for everything that’s coming next. The journey from 2022 to today.

Why We Had to Change 🩵 Our business is change. Every year, we have grown our customer base, our transaction volume has grown over 120x from January 2022 till today. As we grew, so did our product — but not always in the right ways. More things broke, some parts of our product didn’t scale. That wasn’t good enough. Our customers were extremely patient with us with small upgrades here and there. So we stepped back. We listened. We watched. We asked: what actually matters when someone opens NALA? NALA 3.0

Three Versions, One Mission 🚀 Every version of NALA reflects our story of where we were and now where we are going. NALA 1.0 — 2022 We had just come out of a pivot. Our goal was to just get live. Let people send money home. Simple, functional, fast. We weren’t sure if we had product market fit yet and just wanted rough direct customer feedback. I had never designed an app before and this was my first time using @figma, I wanted to keep our blue theme and was inspired by the simplicity of CashApp, hence why the blue keyboard.

NALA 2.0 — 2023–2025 As we grew, we needed to launch wallets to support referral rewards. We went with the design inspiration of tile based wallets. We launched wallets and rewards. 67% of new customers today come from referrals.

NALA 3.0 — 2025 (Today) As we build services beyond remittances for our customers in the US, UK and EU. We recognise the current home screen layout doesn’t support our bold goals and vision for what we want to build for our customers. We needed to change to support our ambition.

Introduce NALA 3.0

How did we make design decisions? As our product evolved, we kept stacking features: rewards, wallets, referrals, new payment options. But the home screen structure and layout didn’t evolve with it. So we ended up with something that looked fine… but wasn’t the best structured for our long term goals. As I share some of these below, one big caveat to keep in mind, this did not affect most users but definitely affected scaling issues and high standards we hold ourselves to.

Here’s what we were hearing — and seeing: 1. First-time clarity — some new users didn’t know where to start. “Send” wasn’t obvious. 2. Scattered paths to core actions — There were too many ways to do the same thing — send money, compare rates, invite a friend. 3. Comms overload, no hierarchy — KYC alerts sat next to low-priority promos. Critical actions got drowned out. Users didn’t know what mattered most. 4. Our product was outgrowing the layout — We were adding multi-currency wallets, cards and a few other features… but there was no real “home” for any of them. The structure couldn’t support our future. So, we stepped back. We asked: What do people need to see first? What’s essential? What’s optional? What’s in the way? That thinking became the blueprint for NALA 3.0.

Rebuilding Around Brand and Voice Early in the redesign, we tried going minimal — all white, clean lines, no colour. It looked nice. But it didn’t feel like NALA. And after more iterations that I can admit, multiple directions, looking at more fintech apps than my face in the mirror, countless user interviews and multiple meetings (some where at 5 am, just to give an idea about the redesign.)

We decided and brought back our NALA Blue — bold, vibrant, and instantly recognizable. When you open the app, it feels familiar. It feels trusted. It feels like home. The result: a screen that feels uniquely ours. The NALA Way.

Here’s what’s new 👀 We didn’t just clean things up — we rebuilt the experience from the ground up.

What’s different: 1. Improved First-Time User Experience (FTUE) 🩵 — Dedicated FTUE banners removed in favour of smarter in-app cues that guide you through what matters most.

2. Accounts front and center 🎯— Most of you asked us for a place to hold money in NALA. For UK and EU customers, this is now live. Coming soon, we will be showcasing your IBAN (EU) or Account number and Sort Code (UK).

3. Compare rates instantly 🔍 — We know rates matter when initially making a transaction decision, so we made it one of the first things you see.

4. Faster repeat payments ⚡️ — We know most of our customers send to 3 people. To enhance this we: 1. Enabled Swipe to Send — especially usually for repeat transfers of the exact same amount — ie a monthly transfer. 2. Enabled Send Again — where you just instantly click on your top recipient and can enter and amount to send to them.

5. Searchable transaction history + PDF exports — So you can find what you need, fast. 6. Promos & feature banners — We’re rolling out contextual, swipeable cards that preview what’s coming next (👀 cards are on the way!). 7. All Transactions, faster and cleaner — The full list is now on a separate screen that loads in just 0.4 seconds. Less noise. More speed.

Small Things — Make a Big Difference Sometimes it’s the little details that transform an experience: - Send Money & Accounts front and center for easier and quicker decision making. - Send Again surfaces automatically. - Top 3 transactions only — keeps the screen clean, even for power users. - Performance boost — app load time cut nearly in half. (from 2.1s to 1.1s).

Built for Today. Ready for What’s Next. NALA 3.0 is more than a redesign — it’s a foundation. - Cards are coming soon (early access signups live in-app for US customers). - Widgets will bring live product updates to your home screen. - Adaptive Experiences by market — your NALA will evolve depending on where you are and what you need. This is just the beginning. The real work starts now.

Thank You: To everyone who uses NALA — thank you 🙏🏽 Your feedback, your trust, your honest frustrations — they all shaped this product. This redesign wouldn’t exist without you. We’re excited to share NALA 3.0 with you today. And we’re even more excited for what’s coming next. Finally, I’d like to thank our product, engineering and design team at NALA for all the effort in rebuilding this within 3 weeks! Special thank you mention to Jozsef, Kamil, Mahmoud, Chidi, Ryszard, Bailey, Lewis, Ahmed, Christos, Zorawer and Charlotte. I’m proud of what we have done!

If you haven't used NALA yet and live in the US, UK, EU, (Soon Canada), I'd love blunt product feedback, feel free to download @NALAmoney and use my referral code for a FREE bonus: BENJAMIN Thank you for reading this thread 🙏🏽

Much appreciation broo

Great work 🔥🫡.

I love the ideas of Swipe to Send and also Send Again option, they are truly functional features for everyday users. 👏👏👏👏

Impressive. Congratulations, @Benji_Fernandes.

Feels like your gearing towards Revolut cx . Esp with introduction of cards. Interesting.

This design look g**

Impressive work 👏🏾👏🏾

Good, why in Tanzania doesn't access it as usual as from established/launched?.

Azure or AWS you're using?

We're waiting for

I have been waiting for the money transfer to complete from last 3 days yet same reply from your guys @NALAmoney

NALA is doing great around the world congratulations

Make money transfer to bank account in Rwanda

Hongereni sana, quite impressive!

You are missing out business in Japan., any plans to start soon here?.

BEN your Nala customer complaint department is SHIT, @NALAmoney YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS SHIT??? If you wanna know why as your people to visit ticket #91186356