Domain
Fintech & Digital Payments
Platform
Mobile App
Geography
India
Services
Research, Strategy, Design, UX Writing, QA Audit, Design System
The redesign that was both beautiful & functional.
BHIM (Bharat Interface for Money) is India’s official UPI-based mobile payment application, enabling instant & secure bank-to-bank transfers. Introduced to promote financial inclusion & accelerate the country’s move toward cashless payments, BHIM is a product built for every Indian — from daily wage earners in Tier 3 towns to professionals in metro cities. However, despite being a government-backed platform, BHIM struggled to compete with private players like Google Pay, PhonePe & Paytm in terms of adoption, engagement & user experience.
NetBramha partnered with BHIM to reimagine the product experience – transforming it from a purely functional government app into a seamless, engaging & inclusive digital payment companion for the next billion users.
Challenges
Despite its credibility & reach, BHIM faced a steep challenge in both perception & performance. While private apps dominated the UPI ecosystem, BHIM’s interface felt outdated & uninspiring. Users perceived it as a basic, no-frills government service lacking the polish & ease of use offered by competitors. Existing users also showed low engagement – returning only for essential transactions.
The design lacked engagement hooks, emotional connection & clear navigation, resulting in poor retention, cluttered flows & a fragmented experience. These challenges shaped our design direction – to build trust, engagement & accessibility through simplicity.
Solution
NetBramha’s approach was rooted in a Simplicity-first Design Strategy, ensuring every interaction was intuitive, quick & inclusive. We focused on reducing friction in core payment journeys, while introducing features that inspired habitual engagement & emotional connection.
By integrating interactive, everyday-use features such as Family Mode, Spend Analytics & UPI Circle, the redesigned BHIM went beyond being a transactional app to becoming a financial ecosystem for every Indian. The outcome was a seamless, accessible & human-centered product experience designed for inclusivity & scalability.
Research
Our discovery phase involved extensive qualitative & quantitative studies to understand both BHIM’s users & non-users. Surveys, interviews & heuristic evaluations helped us uncover how perceptions, usability challenges & trust issues affected adoption.
We conducted a detailed competitive analysis of other UPI players – Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm & Cred – to understand how emotional design & micro-interactions influenced loyalty & engagement. These insights informed our roadmap to rebuild BHIM’s user experience around clarity, trust & inclusivity.
Pain points
Discovered
Perceived
Government App
Low emotional connection & trust compared to private alternatives
Cluttered Interface
Confusing layouts & poor visual hierarchy hindered task completion
Limited
Repeat Usage
Users had no motivation to return beyond basic money transfers
Inconsistent Accessibility
Lack of language & contrast support excluded low-literacy & regional users
Strategy
Our strategy focused on making BHIM more than just a payment tool – it needed to become a trusted daily companion for financial actions. We used a Simplicity-first framework centered around three pillars.
First, Clarity & Ease of Use, achieved by streamlining navigation & surfacing key actions like ‘Scan & Pay’ within thumb reach. Second, Engagement-driven Features, which turned one-time transactions into ongoing relationships through interactive elements like Gifting, UPI Circle & Spend Analytics. Third, Localized & Inclusive Design, supporting all Indian languages & accessibility standards (WCAG) to ensure equitable usability.
Through this framework, BHIM evolved from a transactional platform into a human-centered digital payment ecosystem.
Simplified Payments
Streamlined Scan & Pay, UPI Lite, and transaction flows for faster, frictionless payments
Enhanced Engagement
Introduced UPI Circle, Spend Tags, and Gifting to increase daily interactions and repeat usage
Inclusive Design
Supported all Indian languages with high-contrast visuals and accessible components for all users
Design
Execution
We redesigned the Scan & Payexperience to be faster & more intuitive by reducing steps to just two & positioning controls for ergonomic use. We introduced options like Pay with VoiceTap & Pay for faster transactions & greater flexibility.
TheTransaction History section was restructured to improve visibility, search & filtering. Categorized views, merchant tagging & exportable statements made record-keeping easier for small business owners & frequent users.
Through UPI Lite, we enabled small-value, PINless transactions for everyday needs like groceries & cabs, optimizing performance even during network congestion.
Spend Tags empowered users to track & manage budgets with predefined & custom categories, providing visual insights into monthly spending patterns.
We also designed UPI Circle, an innovative feature allowing families or groups to share account access securely, with permissions & limits for each member, encouraging collaborative financial management.
Finally, we built a comprehensive Design System that unified BHIM’s look & feel across all screens. This scalable system standardized colors, typography & components, ensuring accessibility, consistency & faster feature rollouts.
Visual design
We went through multiple design iterations to create a visual language that reflects BHIM’s simplicity, trust, and modernity. A refined color palette and thoughtful contrasts enhanced clarity and accessibility. Custom icons, clean typography, and purposeful imagery together shaped a seamless, contemporary experience that feels both distinctly Indian and globally relevant.
Outcomes
The redesigned BHIM UPI App transformed user perception – from a “government utility” to a modern, people-first platform built on trust & inclusivity. Engagement-driven features encouraged repeat usage & improved retention rates. Accessibility & localization extended BHIM’s reach to users across India’s linguistic & economic spectrum, while the robust design system ensured long-term scalability & consistency.
The result was an app that didn’t just enable transactions but fostered confidence, connection & everyday simplicity – a benchmark for inclusive fintech experiences at scale.
The app has seen transactions triple in 2025, moving from 38.9 million to nearly 120 million monthly transactions.
