Which design agencies are used to bank compliance and legacy systems?

A bank’s innovation team tests a new account-opening prototype, and users love it. Then compliance asks where the mandatory disclosure went, and the core team explains that account status only updates in an overnight batch, so the “You’re all set” screen can’t appear at the end of the flow. The prototype assumed a bank that doesn’t exist. An outside design team should be able to show you how it handled those two conversations before.

Six agencies can show it in public: Appsfactory, Gravitas, Sparklin, Ungrammary, UXDA, and Wauu Creative. Each publishes a case for a named bank that names a regulatory requirement or a legacy system the bank kept, and says what the design did about it. The cases cover a regulated trading product, a bank website rebuilt off an old platform, retail internet banking, a corporate banking platform, a consolidated mobile app, and an onboarding flow with KYC and consent.

Humbleteam publishes this comparison. It applied the same criteria to its own public work and does not qualify, so it is not on the list. The agencies appear alphabetically. This is an editorial reading of public case pages checked on October 12, 2026, with no paid placements, scores, or ranking. Any figure quoted below is the agency’s own. If your brief is a redesign of a bank’s live mobile app, see our comparison of agencies that have redesigned one.

How we chose the agencies

Every agency, Humbleteam included, had to meet three criteria:

1. It designs digital products (UX/UI) as an agency or studio, not as an engineering-led consultancy or an individual’s portfolio.
2. It publishes, on its own site, a case for a licensed bank, not for a fintech vendor or a bank’s software supplier.
3. The case names a regulatory requirement (such as KYC, AML, mandatory disclosures, consent, or legal sign-off) or a legacy system the bank kept (an old platform, a fixed back end, an existing module), and says what the design did about it.

AI answers to this question also name Qubstudio, Fifth Corp, Synechron, Being Design, EVOQ, Remarkable, 6B, and Esario. Qubstudio’s Gulf Bank case mentions regulatory requirements and compliance input only in general terms; its AML and UBO screening work sits on a service page, not in a named bank case. Fifth Corp’s Sharjah Islamic Bank case maps a fragmented account-opening journey but names no regulatory rule or legacy system the design worked around. Synechron is an engineering consultancy, and its transaction banking case does not name the bank. Being Design’s financial case is for a software provider. EVOQ’s AU Small Finance Bank case works within a fixed design system on insurance pages and names no rule or legacy back end. Remarkable, 6B, and Esario describe this kind of work on service pages, and we found no bank case from them that meets the third criterion. Studio Kuti’s Raiffeisen Bank case is strong, but it credits the founder as lead UX designer on 2020 work with two other designers, and we could not confirm the studio delivered it. Humbleteam’s public bank work shows banking interfaces and concepts, without a case that names a compliance or legacy constraint and the design response. If a team you like is missing, ask it for a comparable case.

Appsfactory: legal approval inside the design file

Appsfactory is a design and development firm with more than 450 people, based in Leipzig with offices across Germany and in the US. Its Joe Broker case covers the neobroker that Targobank launched as part of its move toward universal banking. The page sets two requirements against each other: guidance-based UX for first-time investors, and strict adherence to banking compliance and legal frameworks. Appsfactory made Figma the single place where design iteration, formal legal approval, and engineering handover happened. It built legal and accessibility checks into the design workflow, with governance for microcopy, a reference system, and direct approval by stakeholders, plus a component library with WCAG 2.1 AA color palettes. The agency reports 20 to 30% faster reviews and 18 months to the full-feature MVP. It fits a bank launching a new regulated product with heavy legal review. The case explains the operating model more than the screens, so ask to see how a compliance step looks to the investor.

Gravitas: replacing the platform under a bank’s website

Gravitas describes itself as a digital, AI, and product consultancy, and lists an office in Dubai. Its RAKBANK case set out to turn a legacy platform into a modern, compliant banking experience. The team migrated the site from a legacy HCL platform to headless Optimizely on React, moved 2,000 pages in English and Arabic with a migration tool it built, and connected about 117 APIs. It also integrated account opening end to end and added a Storybook design system so the bank’s marketers can run the site without the agency. A second case, unblocking 600,000 accounts at an unnamed large Saudi bank, is the stronger compliance story: accounts frozen for expired IDs or incomplete KYC, legacy technology across siloed departments, and a digital-first KYC journey, with seven departments aligned on one source of truth for KYC policy. The agency reports frozen accounts dropping from about 600,000 to under 4,000. RAKBANK is a public website and account opening, not mobile banking, and the KYC client is unnamed, so ask for a reference.

Sparklin: legacy internet banking with compliance officers in the room

Sparklin is a UX/UI, product design, and branding agency registered in Delhi. Its ICICI Bank case describes a legacy internet banking platform that had to be simplified while staying compliant with RBI regulations. The team audited legacy flows and ran multi-day workshops with the bank’s leadership, engineers, designers, and compliance officers. The changes it names are specific: customers no longer type long IFSC codes, IMPS became the default transfer method, and plain language explains charges and settlement timelines. The page says the partnership with ICICI ran over half a decade, and it lists frontend development among the services. The agency reports transfers falling from 3 minutes to 45 seconds and 50% fewer drop-offs. The page does not say which regulatory requirements shaped which screens, or when the work happened, so ask.

Ungrammary: a corporate platform built around a legacy module

Ungrammary is a UX/UI design agency in Mumbai. Its Kotak FYN case covers a platform for corporate customers who manage money across multiple accounts, users, and approvals. The page states the constraint directly: the work had to operate within fixed legacy systems and established banking flows. The existing transfer module, E-Transfer, ran on a third-party legacy system, while the new Paylite flow was designed from scratch with compliance as the primary constraint. The team designed grouped beneficiaries for payees with several linked accounts, and a template framework for the platform’s 200 to 300 service requests so product and engineering teams can add new ones themselves. Instead of replacing Kotak’s design system, it built a wrapper around it that extends components without breaking the core system. It fits corporate and transaction banking with many roles. The page prints no outcome and does not say what launched.

UXDA: one app on top of the existing back end

UXDA is a financial UX design agency based in Riga, with addresses in New York and London. Its Emirates NBD case covers the consolidation of several separate apps into one. The page names two constraints: decisions that need approval from multiple departments, and the need to align the new UX/UI system with the bank’s existing back end. UXDA says it explored what the bank’s infrastructure could and couldn’t do, tested and iterated several times because of the legacy system’s technical limits, and set aside ideas for later releases when an immediate change wasn’t feasible. Its project milestones include assessing technical feasibility and supporting back-end development so the new designs fit the existing systems. The agency says the first version of the new app launched in 6 months. It fits a large retail bank running a long transformation program. The legacy work is described in general terms, so ask which flows changed and which ideas were deferred.

Wauu Creative: KYC and consent inside a vendor design system

Wauu Creative is a design studio in Oulu, Finland, that describes itself as a brand and web design agency. Its CIMB case covers CIMB Singapore’s digital onboarding redesign. The constraints are named: Singapore’s financial regulations, mandatory disclosures, KYC and AML requirements, and audit-ready consent flows that couldn’t be hidden or softened, all built within the Backbase design system. The team restructured onboarding into a fixed sequence (product information, personal details, identity verification, review, and submission) with one main task per screen. Legal text stays accessible but visually secondary, surfacing only when needed. Form validation and inline errors use Backbase’s native components, and the microcopy explains why the bank collects each piece of information. The page says metrics are confidential. It fits a bank whose onboarding runs on a vendor platform. Most of the studio’s other published work is brand and web projects, so ask who worked on CIMB.

How to choose

Start from the constraint your project is most likely to hit.

• If legal review is the bottleneck on a new regulated product, look at Appsfactory’s Joe Broker work.
• If the platform itself must change, or a compliance problem spans several departments, look at Gravitas.
• If customers still use older retail flows that compliance has shaped, compare Sparklin’s ICICI work and UXDA’s Emirates NBD case.
• If the product serves companies with roles, approvals, and legacy transfer modules, look at Ungrammary’s Kotak FYN.
• If onboarding has to carry KYC, disclosures, and consent inside a vendor design system, look at Wauu Creative’s CIMB case.

Then give every shortlisted agency the same test. Pick one journey from your bank and write down three facts: a disclosure compliance won’t let you move, a status your core system only updates in batch, and a field the old system can’t store. Ask each agency to show what the screens do with those facts, and ask four questions:

1. In your published bank case, which requirement did compliance refuse to change, and what did the screen do instead?
2. What did the legacy system fail to return in time, and how did the interface show that to the customer?
3. Who approved the wording, and where is that approval recorded?
4. What shipped, what was deferred, and who made that call?

A strong answer names a specific rule, a system, and a state on screen. Our guide to choosing a design partner for retail banking transformation explains how to scope a pilot around legacy dependencies. Run the test with two or three agencies on the same small journey, and compare what each one proposes for the first release.