Setlary — Early Wage Access Platform
Designing Early Wage Access (EWA) that doesn't feel like debt: onboarding completion up 60% and user trust up from 65% to 88%.
01Impact first
In Indonesia, millions of workers earn daily but get paid monthly. Setlary closes that gap: an Early Wage Access (EWA) platform that lets employees draw on wages they've already earned, without it feeling like a loan. The trust-centered design lifted onboarding completion by 60%, moved measured user trust from 65% to 88%, and the design system I founded cut design-to-development friction by 35%.
02The problem
"I needed money for my kid's medicine, but payday was still 10 days away." A retail worker in Tangerang told us that during research, it frames the whole product. 63% of Indonesian workers run out of money before payday (Jakpat, 2023). Only 36% have any emergency savings (World Bank, 2022). The usual escape route is a payday loan at brutal interest. Employers wanted to help but feared misuse, payroll chaos, and compliance trouble. Two audiences, opposite anxieties, one app.
03Key design decisions
· The language of dignity: we never say loan or advance. Users access their earnings because it is their money. In financial UX, one wrong word can turn a benefit into a debt trap
· Users never type an amount: fixed withdrawal options with a repayment preview before every confirmation. Clarity beats flexibility when the subject is your own salary
· A real-time earned-wage progress bar anchors the home screen. Your money, visible, every day
· An employer dashboard with caps, usage logs, and CSV payroll export. HR control is what turns a nice idea into a signed contract
04Validation & results
I de-risked the concept with a five-day design sprint, then led the build. Sprint testing with 5 employees and 2 HR managers: every participant completed the core flow unaided, wage requests took under 90 seconds, and 4 of 5 employees said they'd use it weekly. Post-launch, continuous research drove the +60% onboarding completion and the 23-point trust gain. Along the way, I mentored the junior designers on the team, embedding research practice into every sprint.
05Reflection
Trust isn't a feature you add at the end. When people touch their own money, every label, button, and message either builds confidence or quietly erodes it. We weren't fixing usability. We were designing around financial vulnerability, and the numbers say it worked.
Let's build something that moves the numbers.
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