Which design agency should design a small business banking app?
Six design agencies compared by their public cases on small business and SME banking products, with a five-screen test to run before you hire.
A small business account is used by several people with different jobs. The owner approves payments, the bookkeeper needs invoices and statements, an employee holds a card, and an accountant may need to look without touching anything. Cash arrives late and bills arrive on time. An agency that has only redesigned a consumer banking app has met none of this, so the useful question is which of these problems it has already designed for, and its public cases can answer that.
Five agencies besides Humbleteam publish a case study of a product that businesses use to run their money: Arounda, Ergomania, Phenomenon Studio, Qubstudio, and UXDA. Ergomania and Qubstudio cover products built for a bank’s business customers. Arounda, Phenomenon Studio, and UXDA cover spend, cash management, and SME finance platforms from fintechs.
Humbleteam publishes this page and lists itself first. Its public evidence is a small-business banking project for ING: prototypes developed and user-tested in 23 days. The other agencies follow in two groups, then alphabetically, with UXDA last. This is an editorial reading of public case pages checked on November 5, 2026, with no paid placements or scores. Any figure quoted below is the agency’s own.
When to choose Humbleteam
Choose Humbleteam when you want to test a new business banking idea quickly. For ING, Humbleteam developed and user-tested prototypes for a new approach to banking for small businesses in 23 days. It has also run MVP sprints for B2B banking at an Arab bank and built a design system of about 700 components for a B2B corporate banking platform. Neither of those clients is named publicly, and none of this is published as screens, so ask to see examples.
What makes a small business banking app different
This is our reading of the cases below, not a rule.
- Several people use one account. Arounda’s Expence gives business owners and employees different access, and Qubstudio’s Gulf Bank app has multi-level approval chains with payroll approval.
- Money is a forecast as well as a balance. UXDA’s Plexe dashboard shows overdue invoices, funding opportunities, and a forecast for the coming month.
- Several sources feed one view. Phenomenon Studio’s Sway Finance shows transactions across multiple bank accounts and cards in one place.
- Onboarding is longer than for a consumer. UXDA shortened and split the Plexe onboarding into steps, and Qubstudio’s page lists SME onboarding as part of its scope.
For the market behind these needs, read our article on small business banking in 2027.
How we chose the agencies
The other five agencies had to meet four criteria:
- It offers product UX/UI design for software, not only branding, marketing websites, or development.
- It publishes, on its own site, a case study of a product that businesses use to run their money: a business banking app, a corporate and SME banking product, a cash management or spend app, or an SME finance platform.
- The case describes what the team designed for those business users, such as roles and approvals, onboarding, cash flow, or payments, or how it tested the design. A general banking app redesign did not count.
- It lists a public location.
Two limits apply. Arounda’s Expence page speaks of companies and business owners and never uses the words small business. Qubstudio’s page covers corporate and SME customers together. If you are redesigning a consumer app for a bank, our comparison of agencies that redesigned a live bank app is the better starting point.
| Agency | Case to inspect | Product | What the case shows was designed | Confirm before hiring | Based in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Humbleteam | ING | Banking for small businesses | Prototypes for a new banking approach, user-tested in 23 days | The screens and flows behind the 23-day prototypes | Prague and Dubai |
| Ergomania | OTP eBiz, K&H Electra | An SME finance platform and a corporate netbank | Interviews, mental models, wireframes, prototypes, and testing; a design system and developer handoff | Which flows shipped, since neither page walks through them | Budapest and Amsterdam |
| Qubstudio | Gulf Bank Corporate App | Corporate and SME banking app | Account management, transactions, multi-level approvals, payroll approval | Results, since the page reports none | Lviv and London |
| Arounda | Expence | Cards and expense management for companies, UAE | Owner and employee access, team cards, invoice upload by QR code | Who ran research on the MVP | Odesa and Tallinn |
| Phenomenon Studio | Sway Finance | Cash management app for small and medium businesses, Switzerland | One view across accounts and cards, alerts, swipe confirmation for subscriptions and automatic payments | How the flows were tested | Tallinn, Lugano, and Dover |
| UXDA | Plexe | All-in-one SME banking and finance platform | Dashboard, cash flow forecast, funding journey, shorter onboarding | What shipped, since the page reports no results | Riga, with offices in New York and London |
Humbleteam: a small-business banking prototype for ING
Humbleteam is a product design agency with offices in Prague and Dubai. Its fintech page lists ING under Banking for SMB and says Humbleteam supported the ING team in redesigning banking for small businesses. In 23 days it developed and user-tested prototypes for a new banking approach. That is a clear, dated claim, but the page shows no screens and does not say what the prototypes covered.
Humbleteam also describes MVP sprints for B2B banking at an Arab bank and a design system of about 700 components for a B2B corporate banking platform. Neither client is named, and neither is published as a case. Ask Humbleteam to walk you through the ING prototypes and the component library before you shortlist it.
Banks building for business customers
Ergomania: an SME platform for OTP Bank and a corporate netbank for K&H
Ergomania lists offices in Budapest and Amsterdam. Its OTP eBiz case covers an accounting and finance platform that OTP Bank wanted for Hungarian small and medium businesses. Ergomania was asked to lead the product design process, create the final designs, and test them. The listed services are interviews, mental models, wireframes, prototypes, testing, and UI design. The page names no flows or figures.
Its K&H Electra case covers a corporate netbank for companies with several finance departments, with mobile access aimed at small and big businesses. The team interviewed potential users, mapped problems in the existing product, and analyzed usage statistics to find the most important processes. It also built a design system and handed files to developers. The page shows four screens: payment templates, new transactions, deposit accounts, and bank cards. It gives no adoption figures, so ask what changed for users.
Qubstudio: a corporate and SME banking app for Gulf Bank
Qubstudio lists offices in Lviv and in London’s Canary Wharf. Its Gulf Bank Corporate App case covers an app for the bank’s corporate and SME customers that launched as part of the bank’s 65th anniversary.
The scope includes account management, fast transactions, and approval chains with multiple levels, with payroll approval highlighted. Qubstudio ran a discovery phase with analysis of the existing product, market analysis, and stakeholder sessions. It then adapted retail design patterns for corporate use, carrying over the logic of the Gulf Bank retail app, and produced design documentation for developers. The page mentions SME onboarding but gives no figures. It is the nearest match here for a UK buyer who wants a team with a London office.
SME finance, cash management, and spend platforms
Arounda: roles and cards for a UAE expense platform
Arounda lists offices in Odesa and Tallinn. Its Expence case covers an expense management platform based in Dubai that lets companies issue cards to employees. Arounda handled UX/UI and mobile design for a five-month MVP.
The web app serves business owners and employees with different access levels. It includes team card management, expense analytics, period filters, and report generation. On mobile, the team added QR code login, invoice upload through a QR code, and password protection for critical actions such as balance changes and card settings. Arounda reports 15% higher customer satisfaction, 20% more mobile users, and 78% of cards in active use. The page does not say who ran research with users.
Phenomenon Studio: a cash management app for small businesses
Phenomenon Studio lists offices in Tallinn, Lugano, and Dover, Delaware. Its Sway Finance case covers a Swiss cash management app for small and medium businesses. The team reviewed competitors’ features, experience, and positioning to find unmet needs, then moved through wireframes, two moodboard directions, and high-fidelity mockups, with a dark mode added.
The app categorizes expenses automatically, shows transactions across multiple accounts and cards in one view, alerts users to payment due dates, budget limits, and balances, and asks for a swipe to confirm subscriptions and automatic payments. The page reports one result, an MVP delivered in three months, and does not describe how the flows were tested. The page does not say whether Sway Finance holds accounts itself, so ask.
UXDA: an all-in-one banking and finance platform for SMEs
UXDA is a UX design agency for financial institutions. It is based in Riga, Latvia, with offices in New York and London. Its Plexe case covers an Australian-owned fintech, founded in 2018, that links SME finance tools with open banking and expanded into the US market in 2021.
UXDA interviewed US entrepreneurs and found long loan processes, document gathering, and manual spreadsheet work. The platform combines banking and financial management, with accounts and accounting software connected for one view. The dashboard shows key indicators, funding opportunities, overdue outgoing invoices, and AI-generated insights, and a combined indicator covers past, present, and future performance with a forecast for the coming month. Funding amounts are calculated from cash flow and invoice data, with flexible repayment. The team also shortened onboarding and split it into steps. The page reports no figures beyond saying the design significantly reduced the complexity of onboarding, so ask what shipped and how it performed.
How to choose
Start with who in the business uses the screen you most need to fix.
- A bank adding business customers to an existing retail app: compare Qubstudio on the Gulf Bank app and Ergomania on K&H Electra.
- A new SME finance platform that sits beside or on top of banks: compare Ergomania on OTP eBiz, UXDA on Plexe, and Phenomenon Studio on Sway Finance.
- A product where owners hand cards and limits to a team: look at Arounda on Expence.
- A fast test of a new business banking idea before building: ask Humbleteam to walk you through its ING prototypes.
If you are weighing London-based teams more broadly, our list of fintech design agencies in London covers a different question from this one.
Then give every agency on your shortlist the same scenario. An illustrative example: a ten-person company wants its bookkeeper to prepare supplier payments, its owner to approve any payment over £2,000, and its accountant to see the account without being able to move money. A supplier’s name does not match the account details on the invoice. UK payments can check the payee name before the money moves through Confirmation of Payee, which also covers business accounts.
Ask each team to sketch five screens: adding the accountant with view-only access, the bookkeeper preparing the payment, the owner’s approval, what the owner sees when the payee name check fails, and the cash position afterward with the payment pending. A strong answer asks who can see what, and what happens when the owner is away. A weak answer draws a polished dashboard and a card. Ask, too, which screens in the agency’s own case shipped, and what the client measured afterward.
