Zarga

Bridging the gap in financial services, Zarga helps the underbanked go beyond deposits and withdrawals.

Zarga, part of an IBM South Africa initiative, is a mobile app that offers a safe, simple, and affordable way to make payments at supermarkets, spaza shops, and taxis—as well as send and receive money between friends and family.

IBM first asked us to enhance the usability of Zarga's existing app while maintaining its core functionality. However, as we dug deeper into their long-term vision, it became clear that a full brand refresh and market analysis were essential to creating a sustainable solution.

With limited time and budget, we took an agile approach—prioritising a strong foundation that could evolve and scale with the company, rather than a fixed end product.

📸 Project activities

Segment users by key criteria to identify those most ready to adopt a digital payment tool - both as senders and receivers.

Use ethnographic research to reveal how digital payments fit into daily life and what drives or hinders adoption.

Focus on 1–2 key user journeys or pain points to explore in depth through two targeted design sprints.

Run quick, lean prototype tests to validate product concepts, user journey ideas, and potential interfaces.

Develop a strategic roadmap to guide product design, user onboarding, and awareness-building for Zarga.

📸 Core product features

Make cashless payments (P2B, P2P)

Receive cashless payments (P2B, P2P)

Store funds (save)

Purchase Digital goods (airtime, electricity, lotto, etc.)

Grow funds (in-vest)

Build financial History (for future credit)

Create budgets

Set spending categories / controls

Cross-Border Remittances

To help with some fast prototyping we looked at other apps in the market that offered similar functionality and used them as a benchmark to improve the Zarga offering.

In the absense of deep persona research , we created a general target persona strategy based on a high-level observational research.

📸 Persona Mapping

Business Users (primarily receiving payments)

Spaza Shops & informal vendors

Taxis

Formal Retailers

Personal Users (primarily sending payments)

Spaza Shops & informal vendors

Taxis

Formal Retailers

With limited budget and time, we partnered with a small Black-owned agency to design the logo. They successfully captured the essence of the colloquial term 'Zarga' in a visual identity. We then extended this into a full style guide, including stationery, social media mock-ups, and accessible icon design for both app and web.

Icons

We designed the UI guided by the UX. Building on the logo style guide, we also created custom icons and illustrations tailored to the Zarga brand and its target users

Screen designs