One audit of eight key journeys across ENBD's apps, benchmarked against three credible UAE peers, packaged as a presentation that earns a place at the next leadership review.
The fastest way to become useful in a new bank is to walk its product the way a customer does, take notes, and tell the team what you found. The next fastest is to do the same for two or three competitors, in the same week, with the same lens. This exercise is built for that combination. It is intentionally bigger than a single sitting; it is the body of work you should aim to complete in the first month.
Eight journeys to audit
Walk these eight journeys end to end across the ENBD apps that own them. Where a journey appears in more than one app (transfer, for example, lives in ENBD X, Liv X, Emirates Islamic, and businessONLINE X), document the variants.
Onboarding from app download to first usable account.
First domestic transfer to a new beneficiary, including cooling-off and OTP.
First international transfer via DirectRemit and via SWIFT, side by side.
Bill payment for a common biller and a less common one.
Card management: controls, statements, and an instalment plan setup.
Personal finance application up to but not including signature.
Dispute initiation for a missing transfer and for a card transaction.
Account closure, or the closest equivalent the app offers without forcing a branch visit.
Documentation method
Take screenshots and short screen recordings as you go. Keep them in a single timeline so you can replay journeys in order. Write notes as you watch the recordings rather than during the live walkthrough; the act of being a customer is enough to absorb without also being a critic. Use a shared template so the audit notes look the same across journeys and across competitors. If the bank has a research repository, file your notes there from day one; do not hold them on your laptop.
Avoid the trap of writing critique in passing tense. "The transfer flow has too many steps" is less useful than "The transfer flow asks for purpose, beneficiary, amount, and OTP across four screens; the purpose step is unique to ENBD X among the peers and adds 11 seconds to the average completion time on iPhone 13 with a strong network." The second version survives a board meeting; the first does not.
Benchmark apps
Pick three peers to walk in the same week. The shortlist below is opinionated and small on purpose.
Direct peer
FAB Mobile
The largest UAE bank's flagship retail app. The relevant comparison for breadth, weight, and the editorial tone of a national champion.
Innovation peer
Mashreq Neo
A polished digital-first product from a long-standing UAE bank. The relevant comparison for journey speed and embedded finance fluency.
Challenger
Wio
The home-grown licensed digital bank. The relevant comparison for what a UAE-built app can look like when it starts with a clean sheet of paper.
The deliverable
The audit becomes a slide deck of roughly twenty pages. Treat it as a presentation, not a report. The structure below is what a senior product, design, or technology audience expects to receive.
Title and frame
Who you are, what you walked, the time period, and the lens you used.
Headline findings
Three sentences that summarise the strongest, the weakest, and the most surprising observation across the audit.
Method in one slide
Journeys, devices, networks, languages, peers, and the audit checklist.
Journey by journey, ENBD only
Eight slides, one per journey. Use the same template each time. Lead with the customer feeling, then the data, then the standout moments.
Comparative analysis
Three slides, one per benchmark. For each, name the moments where the peer outperforms and the ones where ENBD already leads.
Patterns and themes
What the audit told you about the design system, the tone of voice, the accessibility floor, and the bank's appetite for friction. Two slides.
Top opportunities
Five recommendations sized for the next quarter. Each gets one slide: problem, proposed move, rough effort, and the metric you would watch.
What you will do next
The first thing you will pick up, the second, and how you will share it back. Close the loop you opened.
The exercise is not graded; the bank does not work that way. It is a piece of professional initiative that signals taste, rigour, and care. The strongest first impressions a new senior designer leaves come from work like this, delivered in the first month, presented without theatre.