MessagePay

Overview

MessagePay let borrowers make loan payments by text message. Banks and credit unions also needed to reconcile those payments, review activity, and support the channel. The product had to connect borrower convenience with institutional requirements.

My role focused on product direction and alignment. I worked with design and engineering on product decisions and managed expectations across internal leadership and external stakeholders, including banks and credit unions adopting the platform. I translated borrower needs and institutional requirements into priorities the team could implement.

The challenge

A loan payment needs to be reconcilable, auditable, and supportable. Adopting financial institutions needed to understand and control the channel, including how staff would investigate activity and resolve issues.

Borrowers needed a payment flow they could understand and complete without unnecessary steps. The challenge was to preserve that simplicity while giving institutions the visibility they required.

What we built

The team designed two connected experiences: an SMS-first borrower flow and an institutional system for controls, visibility, and reporting.

Payment reminders led into the payment flow, and one-time verification patterns supported repeat payments. The experience used a channel borrowers already knew: text messaging.

Controls, visibility, and reporting were part of the product requirements from the beginning. These features supported institutional operations and compliance review alongside the borrower experience.

My focus was to keep these experiences connected as the team made product decisions. The resulting system paired a conversational payment flow with the operational tools financial institutions needed to support it.