In 2018 Bancontact and Payconiq decided to bundle forces to keep dominating the mobile payment market in Belgium: a challenging merge of two very different systems with the same goal. We took the opportunity to reflect on our Bancontact system, stripped down the project to the bone, and put a whole new abstraction layer on top of it.

Not only the product itself was challenged but also the way we worked together as a team since we merged with the Payconiq technical team based in Amsterdam. My role in this merge was defining a new, scalable, future-proof architecture for the app.

Most of the work went into implementing the new onboarding and payment flows supporting both payment systems. Combining both systems was done in the app without a new backend combining both.

A fast-growing company leading the European market for connected e-bikes with a high focus on product design. The bike goes hand in hand with the companion app which handles all product settings and interactions. There is no Cowboy bike without the beloved Cowboy app.

At Cowboys development team, I was leading the feature development of the crash detection mechanism, the auto unlocking of the bike using Bluetooth Low Energy, and displaying users' trip history. Besides developing, I'm also part of the product team thinking about new valuable functionalities.

The current iOS app is based on code written during the startup phase of Cowboy. Due to the fast development pace back then, the app architecture didn't get much attention. Step by step improving the codebase to a flexible and testable structure is important to me when developing new features.

Bancontact was the first payment system in Belgium that shifted the focus to mobile. Anno 2013 many Belgian banks didn't have an app of their own. The Bancontact app started small with the possibility to pay friends with one linked debit card.

A first big update introduced support for paying on desktop webshops using the app via a QR code. This extremely improved the online payment experience by removing the need for a card reader for every transaction. Support for multiple debit cards was added later on.

The impact on the design and architecture of the app was high, but we managed to keep it simple for the user.

I joined the Bancontact team at In The Pocket one year after the initial launch of the product in 2013. I developed a large set of iOS features during the move from one to multiple cards. Working closely with the design team was important to make sure we delivered a best-in-class iOS app to our customers.

Focus on security was very important, we worked together with Guardsquare and other external security firms to obfuscate, test, and harden the app.