Cielo

Context & problem

Cielo, Brazil's leading payment company, wanted to let sellers accept card payments with just their smartphone, using NFC tap-to-pay inside the Cielo Gestão app.

• Card machines as a barrier — Small sellers depended on dedicated terminals to accept card payments.
• A new behaviour to teach — Turning a phone into a payment terminal had to feel safe and obvious.
• Regulated payments — The flow had to meet strict card-network and security requirements.

Process & discovery

I led the UX/UI of the feature from research to launch, balancing seller needs, business strategy and regulatory compliance. I also worked full stack, building the tap-to-pay screens in Swift for iOS and the Java (Spring Boot) services that support them.

• Research — Interviews with sellers to understand how and where they get paid.
• Benchmark — Analysis of tap-to-pay solutions and payment apps worldwide.
• Design — Onboarding, activation and payment flows built for speed and trust.
• Validate — Prototype tests with sellers and alignment with stakeholders.

Results

Tap-to-pay turned millions of smartphones into payment terminals and became a new sales channel for Cielo.

• 1M+ Users — Reached at Launch
• 55%+ Increase — in New Sales

Tools

Design and code in one flow: from UX/UI in Figma to the frontend and backend in production.

• Figma — UX/UI & Prototypes
• Swift — iOS App & NFC
• Java — Spring Boot APIs

Learnings

• Trust is the feature — Clear feedback at every step made sellers confident to take payments on their phone.
• Design for the counter — Sellers pay attention for seconds: one-tap actions and big targets won.
• Regulation shapes the flow — Working with compliance from day one avoided late redesigns.