Farhan Razak

Case study

Driving Credit Card Acquisition & Engagement at SHARE Ecosystem

Overview

As the Director of Design at SHARE Ecosystem, I led the strategic vision and execution for the multi-bank credit card acquisition journey. Tasked with overcoming key challenges in user acquisition and engagement, I leveraged a cross-functional, data-driven approach to build a seamless and scalable experience that significantly improved adoption and customer satisfaction.

Role

Director · Design

Est Impact

250M

Reach

Industry

Loyalty & Fintech

FAB co-

branded card

FAB co-

branded card

SHARE is one of the largest loyalty platform in UAE and rewards customers for spending across Majid Al futtaim. We launched a co branded credit card with FAB offering higher benefits and rewards for customers. Current data shows us tremendous value in investing further and acquiring more users for the credit card.

27.1k

Cards sold

67%

Spend increase

200M

Incremental Spend

2.2X

MAF spend

+ 2%

+2%

Avg basket size

26M

Points redeemed

Based on SHARE X FAB 2024 data

Problem

Statement

Problem

Statement

41% of customers struggled to understand the benefits beyond Carrefour, as the application process failed to effectively communicate the full range of card perks.

This lack of awareness reduced the card’s attractiveness during the application phase and, post-issuance, decreased the likelihood of it becoming the user's primary card by 17%

(Based on CX team report)

The ecosystem was expanding to include multiple banks, requiring a scalable, and personalized digital experience.

(Strategy and business needs)

The ecosystem was expanding to include multiple banks, requiring a scalable, and personalized digital experience.

(Strategy and business needs)

Over AED 107.5M in potential engagement is lost monthly

This due to users either use non-FAB cards for MAF purchases, fail to link their FAB card to SHARE rewards, or spend on similar categories outside the MAF ecosystem—reducing retention, rewards utilization, and overall card value.

(Evaluation by data science team)

For this case study, I have not included the solutions for the missed engagement of AED 107M (this is separately addressed). Instead, we focused on the first two challenges..

To address these challenges, I led a 4-day design sprint—the first-ever in-house sprint at SHARE—bringing together cross-functional stakeholders from Product, Data, Engineering, Marketing, and Finance. As the sole designer on the project, I worked hands-on throughout the entire process, ensuring that every design decision was rooted in user research and business needs. Through this sprint, we were able to rapidly explore, test, and refine solutions before committing to development, thereby saving significant costs and reducing time to market.

For this case study, I have not included the solutions for the missed engagement of AED 107M (this is separately addressed). Instead, we focused on the first two challenges..

Core

team

Core

team

Farhan

Director · Design

Jonathan

Director · Product

Lama

Director · Commercial

Omar

Sr Lead · Engineering

Hammad

Data Science

Mahmoud

Finance & Partnerships

Furkan

Manager · Marketing

Beatrixz

Sr CX

Kashish

Product

Experts

Raffy

VP · Fintech

kashmira

Group VP · Loyalty

Antonio

Director · Partnerships

Simon

Head · Product

Nahi

Director · Fintech

Petros

Director · Finance

Day 1

Define

Mapped out user personas based on data (non-card holders, existing FAB cardholders, high-tier spenders, etc.)
Defined key pain points from usability tests, including limited visibility of card benefits and confusion around cashback structures.
Engaged stakeholders for early alignment, ensuring that business and tech constraints were considered upfront.

Goal

Active SHARE members can easily discover and decide on the most suitable card for them

Risks

CVP is indistinguishable
Limited visibility outside of the SHARE app
Customers don’t understand the CVP
Limited visibility of the bank’s digital journey

Metrics

Funnel performance
Right card for the right person
Activation rate
Number of cards issued

Customer types

Existing FAB card holder
Tiered member categorization
Spend potential categorization

Day 2

Ideation & Concept Exploration

Conducted lightning demos to benchmark best-in-class financial products across digital and non-digital spaces.
Facilitated Crazy 8s and individual sketching exercises to generate diverse UI/UX solutions.
Defined key journeys: streamlined card selection, transparent CVP (Customer Value Proposition) presentation, and intuitive application flow.

Day 3

Supevote & Storyboard

Ran internal critiques and voting sessions to finalize a data-backed design direction.
Developed low-fidelity wireframes integrating customer-first elements

Day 4

Prototyping

Developed high-fidelity wireframes integrating customer-first elements such as side-by-side card comparisons, personalized recommendations, and real-time benefit calculations.
Ran internal critiques and voting sessions to finalize a data-backed design direction.

The test was delayed for a few days due to new UAE regulation impacting how we contact the customers. I’ve used this time to polish and create high fidelity designs in black and white.

Day 5

Usability Test

On the final day of testing, we conducted a guerrilla usability test at SHARE Mall with 8 randomly selected customers to evaluate the effectiveness of our credit card selection experience. The key findings were

Users completed the task of selecting a preferred card

Users engaged with the filters

Users struggled with the selection of a card

Users liked the details of the card.

/10

Customers rated the over all experience

The launch MLP

Looking at the effort vs impact, we removed the comparator feature from the initial launch MLP. This has significantly reduced our development time.

One major trade-off was choosing a cross-platform approach over native integration. This decision ensured a smoother experience across iOS and Android while allowing seamless integration into multiple MAF apps (SHARE, Carrefour, Belong).

Pivot

Usability testing at a mall revealed that some users struggled with a vertical list of credit cards. The big pivot was shifting to a bank-based grouping system, showing only two banks at a time with a primary card and hints of more options. This streamlined choices, reduced cognitive load, and significantly improved user confidence.

Scalability

We also wanted the design to function across multiple apps from MAF to widen our reach for launch. Design should support for integration to iOS and Android apps of SHARE, Carrefour and Belong while also being able to launch it on SHARE website.

We used tokens to manage and support various themes of different brands which was also inline with our overall strategy on saving development time

The development is ongoing and the big bang launch of new credit card is planned for MAY 2025.

Expected Impact

240M

Incremental spend

7.5k

Card sales in 6 months

20%

Increase in applications

30%

Higher engagement

+40s

Avg time spent

Based on FAB 2024 data, industry trends as well as benchmarking

What next?

MLP Launch

Development In progress · 1st May Launch

AI Recommendation

Design in progress · Jul Launch

Card Comparator

Sep 2025

Next Bank Launch

Dec 2025

Indicated plan. Actual plan might vary depending on post launch feedback from customers

My Role &

Key Contributions

My Role &

Key Contributions

End-to-end execution

As the sole designer, I owned the UX/UI strategy, research, prototyping, and final design of the launch.

Strategic

leadership

Strategic

leadership

Defined and executed the end-to-end design strategy for multi-bank credit card acquisition.

Data-driven decision-making

Leveraged usability & data insights and A/B testing to iterate and optimize experiences.

Innovation & execution

Introduced SHARE’s first in-house design sprint, fostering a culture of rapid experimentation and alignment.

Cross-functional collaboration

Unified stakeholders from multiple teams to align on user-centric solutions.