In 2021, BTG Pactual made the strategic decision to replace its white-label trading app, previously managed by a third-party partner, with a proprietary, high-performance platform. The legacy solution had significant limitations in usability and scalability. Additionally, support and maintenance were heavily dependent on the partner's development timelines, often delaying updates and issue resolution.

In 2021, BTG Pactual made the strategic decision to replace its white-label trading app, previously managed by a third-party partner, with a proprietary, high-performance platform. While functional, the legacy solution had significant limitations in usability, customization, and scalability. Additionally, support and maintenance were heavily dependent on the partner's development timelines, often delaying updates and issue resolution. This reliance also made it difficult to deploy tailored features for BTG's clients, demanding extra effort from internal teams to manage service quality.

For a bank with over 23 million clients and a rapidly growing base of retail and institutional investors, the challenge was not only to match the existing feature set but to elevate the user experience, streamline order execution, and support high-frequency trading with real-time accuracy.

As a Senior Product Designer in a multidisciplinary agile squad, I contributed to the end-to-end design process, driving strategic design decisions and ensuring alignment with business goals. My work began with deep immersion into BTG's strategic objectives, market analysis, and the macroeconomic landscape of variable income investments in Brazil. Applying the Double Diamond framework, I conducted quantitative research with BTG clients, qualitative interviews, legacy platform flow mapping, usability testing, and user behavior analysis. These activities uncovered critical insights, such as confusion during order placements and high abandonment rates in transaction funnels.

To inform the design of the BTG Trader app, a comprehensive contextual analysis and usability test was conducted in the first quarter of 2022. The research included 9 users segmented into Position Traders and Day Traders, covering both users of the legacy app and the new version. Sessions were moderated in a controlled production environment, enabling the observation of natural user behaviors and navigation paths.

The study revealed key insights:

• Concerns over performance stability, particularly Day Traders who rely on real-time updates.
• Navigation paths were noted as complex, with calls for simplification in adding assets and executing orders.
• Inconsistent real-time updates created trust issues, especially during high-volatility trades.
• Advanced features like the ”limit order” type required clearer explanations and tooltips.

1. Simplified Order Flow: Redesigned the order ticket to prevent user confusion and reduce errors during trade executions.
2. Enhanced Charting Tools: Advanced candlestick charts, multiple visualization modes and integrated trading directly from charts.
3. Streamlined Portfolio Management: Optimized navigation for tracking assets, viewing positions, and accessing financial reports seamlessly.
4. Real-time Data Accuracy: Improved latency and ensured real-time updates, critical for high-frequency trading environments.
5. Improved User Education: Added clear tooltips and guided explanations for advanced trading features, reducing user error and enhancing engagement.

Building on the success of the Trader app, BTG Pactual expanded its digital offerings to the Web Home Broker, designed to offer the same intuitive and high-performance experience on desktop platforms. This expansion allowed investors to execute trades, monitor portfolios, and access real-time market data with the same seamless experience found on the app, ensuring consistency across platforms and solidifying BTG’s presence in the competitive online trading market. Future developments will focus on advanced analytics, algorithmic trading, and enhanced real-time insights, aiming to set a new benchmark in financial technology solutions across all digital channels.