TemiStar - Simplifying the complexity of cooperative finance
From member management to contributions and payments, TemiStar presents a unified experience that brings the moving parts of cooperative operations into one clear system.
Role
Duration
Tools
Team
TemiStar is a fintech SaaS platform digitizing how cooperative societies and savings groups operate in Nigeria. Most still run on spreadsheets and WhatsApp, leaving members blind to their money and admins buried in manual work. TemiStar brings it all into one system: a mobile app for members, a web app for cooperative admins, and a super admin console for platform governance.
I led design end to end, from brand identity and logo to all three products. The core challenge was unifying four very different savings models (ROSCAs, charity pools, social pools and regulated cooperatives) into one coherent, trustworthy experience.
Cooperatives and savings groups in Nigeria move real money every week, but almost none of it runs on systems built for it. Contributions are tracked in spreadsheets and notebooks, payout turns are agreed in WhatsApp threads, and members often have no way to check their balance without asking an admin. The result is a model that runs on trust but constantly erodes it.
Members have no real-time view of their contributions, balances or payout dates, so every question goes through an admin
Payout rotations and pool insurance in ROSCAs are managed by hand, which leads to disputes over turns and missed contributions
Charity and social pools have no fair way to approve withdrawals or loans, so decisions rest on one person's word
Regulated cooperatives struggle with member verification, loan tracking and compliance records kept across scattered files
Collecting money is fragmented across cash, transfers and mobile payments, with reconciliation done manually
Platform-wide, there's no oversight layer to spot defaults, fraud or abuse before they spread
Discovery was driven by stakeholder briefs and close domain knowledge of how Nigerian savings groups operate. Rather than starting with screens, I mapped each of the four savings models, their rules and the people involved, to understand where money, trust and control actually changed hands.
Key Findings
Trust is the real product. Groups run on personal relationships with the admin, so every transaction needed to be visible to members, not just recorded.
Defaults are the biggest fear. In ROSCAs, members who collect early and stop contributing break the circle. This shaped pool insurance, which holds the first collection as a safety net.
Payout order drives conflict. Members argue over turns and often need to swap for emergencies, which led to automated scheduling and cycle swaps.
Shared money needs shared control. In charity and social pools, no single person should approve withdrawals, so deductions require consensus and any member can veto.
Regulated cooperatives need proof, not just convenience. Verification and audit trails became core to the admin web app, backed by BVN/NIN checks.
Working from stakeholder briefs alongside a product manager, an engineer and a QA tester, I broke each of the four savings models into its rules, roles and money movements, then mapped where each user needed to see, act or intervene. From there I moved quickly into high-fidelity interactive prototypes, using them as the main ideation tool. The PM could validate business rules against real flows, the engineer could flag feasibility early, and QA could stress-test edge cases like defaults, vetoed deductions and failed payments before anything was built.
We converged on a concept I called "See, Act, Govern": one platform with three role-shaped surfaces sharing a single source of truth. Members see everything that affects their money on mobile. Cooperative admins act through a structured web workspace for members, savings, loans and compliance. Super admins govern through a consistent oversight pattern of scope selectors, rule panels, flagged-item queues, intervention drawers and immutable audit logs, repeated across every group type so the platform team learns it once.
I mapped 5 primary user journeys across 4 user roles: group member, group admin, cooperative admin and super admin. The priority flow was a member joining a ROSCA and receiving a payout, because it's the MVP's core loop and the moment where trust is either earned or lost. The goal was to take a process that ran on WhatsApp messages, bank transfers and an organiser's notebook and turn it into one guided flow, where every step is visible to the member and recorded by the system.
Join a ROSCA to first payout. Sign up, verify with BVN/NIN, fund the wallet, join the group, and see your payout turn and pool insurance before you commit.
Create and launch a group. A group admin sets membership limits, contribution amount and cycle, approves members, and launches the first cycle from a single setup flow.
Request and approve a pool deduction. In charity and social pools, the admin raises a deduction or loan, members vote in-app, and any single "no" vetoes it automatically.
Loan application to disbursement. Cooperative admins review applications in a drawer alongside the list, check guarantors, savings and KYC status, then approve and track repayments.
Flag to intervention. Super admins scope to a group type, review flagged issues like missed cycles or payout disputes, intervene, and every action is written to an immutable log.
100+ screens drafted across three products in mid-fidelity, letting the PM, engineer and QA validate money rules and edge cases before a single high-fidelity screen was built.
The visual direction needed to make people feel safe handing their money to an app, while staying warm and familiar enough for users moving over from WhatsApp groups and paper ledgers. I anchored the system in a confident blue as the primary colour, used for key actions and to signal reliability, set against generous white space so screens feel calm and uncluttered. Gold lives in the logo as a brand accent, a quiet nod to prosperity and value, but I kept it out of the interface so blue alone carries meaning and every action stays unambiguous. The typography is built on Geist, whose clean, highly legible numerals suit a product where amounts matter most. A clear hierarchy and generous spacing let a member read their balance at a glance on mobile and let an admin scan dense loan and contribution tables on the web without feeling overwhelmed.
I built high-fidelity interactive prototypes for the Cooperative Admin and Super Admin web apps as standalone HTML, covering about 14 admin modules and the full Super Admin governance pattern across ROSCA, Charity Pool and Onboarding. Rather than clickable mockups, they behaved like working software: cross-linked navigation, live filters, drawers and approval actions, all running inside a realistic demo environment, with real-feeling members, ₦ amounts, BVN/NIN references and loan records.
3
Products Designed
14
Coop Admin Core Modules
12
Super Admin Core Modules
Iteration 1: Navigation. Early mid-fi drafts used a top navigation bar for the Cooperative Admin app. As the product grew to 14 modules, the top bar couldn't hold them without hiding key areas behind a "More" menu, so I moved to a sidebar in the final design. Result: every module stays one click away, and the sidebar has room to grow as new features ship.
Iteration 2: One governance pattern. Each Super Admin module initially risked getting its own layout. I standardised all of them on one pattern: scope selector, rules panel, flagged-items table, intervention drawer and immutable audit log. Result: the platform team learns the console once and can move between ROSCA, Charity Pool and Onboarding without relearning anything.
The final design, built around the "See, Act, Govern" concept, delivers one trustworthy platform for every way Nigerians save together, from a 10-person ajo circle to a government-registered cooperative. Each role gets a surface shaped to its job, all sharing one source of truth. Key features include:
Member mobile app with the wallet balance up front, quick actions to create or join a group, add money and withdraw, and live progress on every group's contributions and payouts
One home for four savings models, letting members explore and join ROSCA, Charity, Social and Cooperative groups from a single screen, each with its own rules made clear before they commit
Flexible funding through bank transfer, USSD, QR, card and wallet, so members without cards or banking apps aren't left out
Cooperative Admin web app covering members, savings, loans, contributions, approvals, offerings, wallet and settlement, compliance and reports
Member lifecycle management that tracks every member from pending activation through verification to exit, with BVN/NIN checks built in
Loan review in context, with eligibility checks, guarantors and repayment schedules in a drawer beside the list, so admins never lose their place
Super Admin governance console using one repeatable pattern (scope, rules, flagged items, intervention and an immutable audit log) across every group type
< 2%
Payouts Disputes
70%
Wallet Funded
50%
Faster Reconciliation
TemiStar is preparing for public launch, with 3 products and 100+ screens designed end to end, unifying 4 savings models in one experience.
After launch, success will be measured by fewer payout disputes, higher verification-to-funding rates, and less time admins spend reconciling records.
In money products, trust is the real feature. Members didn't need more functionality; they needed to see their balance, their turn and who has paid. Visibility did more to replace the WhatsApp-and-notebook system than any single feature.
Edge cases are the product when money moves. Defaults, vetoed deductions, failed payouts and members in arrears weren't corner cases; they were where trust is won or lost. Designing them early, alongside QA, saved rework later.
On a lean team, high-fidelity prototypes are the fastest form of documentation. Interactive prototypes answered questions that specs and static screens couldn't, and gave the PM, engineer and QA one shared source of truth.
Consistency compounds. Repeating one governance pattern across every Super Admin module, and keeping status labels consistent across screens, made the product feel simpler than its complexity.
Direct debit mandates. Automate contributions and loan repayments for premium members, with clear setup and easy pause or cancel.
Automated recovery. Recover defaults from BVN-linked accounts past the grace period, backed by upfront consent and clear warnings.
Buy now, pay later. Offer instalment purchases to credit-scored members, with simple explanations of eligibility and terms.
