Northwind Bank — Member App
A subscription-grade mobile banking experience for a 90-year-old regional bank — built from scratch in 14 weeks.
A 90-year-old bank wanted to feel like a startup.
Northwind had a working app that did the job but felt nothing like the products its under-40 customers used every day. They needed a complete rebuild — faster login, redesigned cards interface, native biometrics, and a tap-friendly transfer flow — without disrupting 220,000 monthly active users.
“We expected a redesign. We got an entirely new product that our customers actually choose to open. The first week's reviews said it better than any of our internal metrics could.”
Six screens from the shipped product.
We rebuilt it as if Northwind had never had an app before.
Instead of patching the existing codebase, we started with a fresh React Native foundation that shares 80% of code between iOS and Android. The first three weeks were design — Tijana ran weekly Figma reviews directly with the Northwind product team while engineering set up CI, code review automation, and a feature-flag system that let us ship daily without disrupting the production app.
Native biometrics, properly
Face ID and fingerprint unlock that actually work the way iOS users expect — not the buggy fallback most banking apps ship with.
A transfer flow that fits the thumb
Reduced from 6 taps to 2 for repeat recipients. The keyboard never covers the field. Tested with 12 real customers before merging.
Daily releases via TestFlight
Northwind's product team could see new features within 30 minutes of merge. Iteration speed went from monthly to daily.
Shipped to the App Store on week 14.
Northwind launched the new app to 100% of users on a Tuesday. By Friday, 4.8★ App Store rating with 1,200 reviews. Average login time dropped from 8.2 seconds to 4.7. Three months later they retain us on a monthly subscription for ongoing work.
- Stack
- React Native 0.75, TypeScript, Reanimated 3
- Backend
- Northwind's existing core banking API + a thin BFF in Node
- Auth
- Native biometrics, FIDO2 fallback
- CI / CD
- GitHub Actions → TestFlight + Internal App Sharing, daily
- Analytics
- PostHog, Sentry for crash reporting
- Timeline
- 14 weeks from kickoff to public launch
- Team
- 5 (1 founder, 2 mobile, 1 backend, 1 designer)
Five of us at BetaStudio. The same people you'd talk to on Slack are the ones who shipped this.
nermin
Founder
edib
Mobile
dzeneta
Mobile
amel
Backend
tijana
Product
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