PayK: bringing Paybox's group payments to Australia

Rotem Elimelech (Rotem E) designed PayK, the Australian group money-collection and peer-payment app, as a freelance mobile product designer from 2018 to 2019.

PayK was built on Paybox, the popular Israeli app for collecting money in groups; the job was a new product for a new market on that base: the flows, the mobile interface on iOS and Android with a web companion, and a brand of its own.

Rotem worked side by side with one of the founders, the VP Product, and led the branding, bringing in a logo designer and an illustrator.

Everything shown in the PayK case study shipped.

Today Rotem is a freelance product designer (UX/UI) in Tel Aviv, Israel. PayK is the fintech and mobile part of his record: one person responsible for research, product definition, UX, branding and UI on an app where every action moves money. This page tells that story in text; the case study shows the screens.

View the PayK case study · About Rotem · Discuss a project

Relevant experience for your project

• Adapting a proven product to a new market. Paybox’s group-collection habit, redesigned for Australians rather than translated: new flows, new brand, one interaction model across three platforms.
• Peer-to-peer payments and digital wallets. Send money to anyone in a few taps with a contact picker and an amount keypad, withdraw to a bank account with a PIN, manage cards and payment methods.
• Group money collection. Open a collection with an amount, a name and members, follow who paid in an activity feed, and pay a peer from the same product.
• Financial onboarding and identity verification. Sign-up with phone verification, identity checks and card setup, designed to feel safe to a first-time user.
• Brand and illustration for a consumer fintech app. A logo, a palette and a playful illustration language for a money app, plus integrated gift cards as a product add-on.

PayK at a glance

What Rotem found, and what he built

When Rotem joined in 2018, Paybox already worked in Israel: a popular app for collecting money in groups. PayK was to bring that to Australia, where no such app existed, on Paybox’s base but as its own product. Collecting from a group there was still a chore of messages and bank transfers, and paying a friend back took bank details and days.

By 2019 the product was whole. A home screen of My groups and an Activity feed of pending and completed payments. A collect flow that opens a group with an amount, a name and members. A send flow with a contact picker, an amount keypad and a confirmation. A cash-out flow to a bank account with a PIN. Payment methods with cards, identity verification, onboarding with phone verification, account settings, support and contact, and integrated gift cards with suggested brands. Around it, a brand board with a logo, a color palette and playful illustrations, and an icon language for payment received, bank transfer and the other moments of the app.

Rotem’s role

Rotem worked side by side with one of the founders, the VP Product. The founder made the first plan; the two then sat together on each page or feature, planned it, and Rotem went to design it, from research and definition through UX and UI on mobile, with the web app as a companion. He was also in charge of the branding: he brought in a logo designer and an illustrator, who created the logo and the graphic illustration language under his direction. Four sources fed the definition: Paybox’s own usage and habits; the founders’ research on how Australians collect and pay each other; the competing apps, studied for what to match and what to skip; and Australian users, interviewed and tested during the design.

The problem, and the constraints

Three problems, one product. Collecting money from a group of friends, colleagues or parents meant chasing people by message and bank transfer. Paying a peer was slow: bank details, steps, days. And Australia had no Paybox, so the habit that worked in Israel had no app to live in.

Two constraints shaped the design. Three platforms, iOS, Android and web, had to share one interaction model, so a user who learned the app on one phone knew it on the other. And a new market needed a new brand: PayK could not look like Paybox in English; it needed its own identity, tone and illustrations.

Product decisions

Four decisions Rotem made and would defend today.

1. Every money task is a short guided flow

The decision: Rotem broke every financial task into a short guided flow: explicit amount entry, the recipient or group in view, verification steps and a clear confirmation, with group and person-to-person activity sharing one product language.

Why: payment UX has no room for ambiguity. A user has to know what will happen before an action and what happened right after it, whether they are sending twenty dollars to a friend or withdrawing a group’s collection to their bank.

Tradeoff: a guided flow is more taps than a single form. Each step shows one decision, so speed comes from never having to check twice.

Shown in the case study: Send, Cash out, Collect and Setup.

2. Groups and peers speak one language

The decision: collecting money as a group and paying one person are the same product: the same amount keypad, the same contact picker, the same activity feed and the same confirmation.

Why: the strongest alternative was chat-first: groups as conversations with money inside, like a messenger. It is social, but every payment then starts inside a chat, and the person who only wants to pay a friend back is slowed by a group model they did not ask for. One language serves both without making either the side feature.

Tradeoff: less conversation inside the app. The activity feed carries what a group needs to know, who paid and what is pending, without a chat to scroll.

Shown in the case study: The core, Home and Collect.

3. Home is your groups and your activity

The decision: the home screen is the My groups list and the Activity feed of pending and completed payments, not a balance page.

Why: the reason to open PayK is a group that is collecting or a payment that is pending. A balance-first home, like a bank’s, would have answered a question the user did not come with.

Tradeoff: the balance is one screen away instead of first. The cash-out flow and the account screens carry it where it matters.

Shown in the case study: Home and Account.

4. A playful brand for a money app

The decision: a logo, a color palette and a playful illustration language, with icon illustrations for the moments of the app (payment received, bank transfer, a new group), created by a logo designer and an illustrator Rotem brought in and directed.

Why: an app that collects money among friends should feel like the friends, not like the bank behind it. The brand had to be PayK’s own, for Australia, apart from Paybox.

Tradeoff: playfulness must never blur a number. The illustrations live around the flows, in empty states, confirmations and onboarding; inside a flow the amount and the recipient stay plain.

Shown in the case study: Branding and illustrations, Onboarding, Help.

What shipped, and what it did

Everything in the case study shipped, on iOS and Android with the web companion, while Rotem was on the project. This page documents the design work; no measured outcome is published here.

The facts on this page come from Rotem’s own account, the PayK case study and his career timeline. The figures inside the interface screenshots are demo content, not results.

Frequently asked questions

What did Rotem Elimelech design for PayK?

The whole Australian app on Paybox’s base: group collection, peer payments, the activity feed, cash-out to a bank account, payment methods, identity verification, onboarding, account settings, support and the integrated gift cards, on iOS and Android with a web companion, plus the brand, as a freelance mobile product designer from 2018 to 2019.

Is this case relevant to a fintech, payments or digital wallet product?

Yes. PayK is a consumer fintech app: peer-to-peer payments, group money collection, a wallet with bank withdrawal, card setup and identity verification, designed so that every amount, recipient and result is explicit before and after the action.

Did Rotem design the brand and the illustrations himself?

He led the branding and brought in a logo designer and an illustrator, who created the logo and the illustration language under his direction; the product design, the flows and the interface on all three platforms are his.

Is Rotem available to design a similar payments or mobile app?

Yes, as a freelance product designer, on a retainer or for a defined project: a payment or wallet flow, financial onboarding and identity verification, a mobile app across iOS and Android, or the full product from research to UI and brand. Availability and rates are on his profile.

Work with Rotem

For a team building a payments app, a digital wallet, a consumer fintech product or any mobile app where an action has to be unambiguous, Rotem brings the whole product process, research, product definition, UX, branding and UI design, and the experience of taking a proven product into a new market as its own product. Availability, rates and how he works are on his profile.

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