FTSE 250 financial services company
Rapidly building a crypto trading app for new-to-crypto customers
The brief
A FTSE 250 financial services company approached Loomery to help them rapidly enter the cryptocurrency market. The challenge was clear: develop a high-quality crypto trading app that would appeal to the next generation of traders while demonstrating the value of a fast-moving, innovative approach.
The organisation recognised the need to expand their customer base but faced typical enterprise constraints of legacy systems, risk aversion, and slow decision-making. The Loomery team was tasked with operating outside these boundaries, in a ‘skunkworks’ model, to deliver results quickly - showcasing what's possible when a focused, autonomous team is empowered to move fast and experiment.
Project summary
With 6 weeks of discovery and elaboration, followed by 12 weeks of development, the Loomery team built a beautiful, functional, user-friendly crypto app for iPhone with core trading features.
Project in numbers
18
weeks from kick-off to functional app
12
In-depth exploratory user interviews
5
Core team members
"Working with Loomery is like working with a dream team - the kind of team you want to be part of. A team with a mission, a purpose, and the drive to get things done."
— Director of Innovation
Understanding our target audience
Our starting point was simple: understand the people we were designing for. Through in-depth research interviews with new-to-crypto users, we uncovered four key themes:
These insights shaped every aspect of our approach - from the features we prioritised to the language we used - helping us design something that felt accessible without sacrificing capability.
Prioritising speed whilst laying a foundation for growth
Moving into development, a small cross-functional team of a Loomery product manager, designer, and three software engineers worked closely together and made decisions fast.
Our approach focused on three key pillars:
Building an essential feature-set
Onboarding: A welcoming, easy-to-follow sign-up flow with email verification
Explore: Market data, top movers, interactive charts
Trade: Buying and selling, price change animations, transaction history
Portfolio: Live performance tracking
Support: Built-in FAQs and the ability to raise help requests
Engineering for performance and scalability
Under the hood, we chose a modern, scalable backend. A serverless architecture on Google Cloud Platform, with Firebase handling authentication and MongoDB for data storage. We integrated with trusted third-party services for key capabilities, like Cin API for payments and market data.
On the frontend, we used native modern iOS frameworks - SwiftUI, Swift Charts and TCA - to deliver high performance and a polished feel whilst making the experience accessible. This gave us full control over the user interface and allowed us to make the experience deeply customised.
Solving crypto-specific challenges
Crypto markets move constantly, requiring interfaces that convey price volatility without overwhelming users, so we built a responsive chart system with tactile feedback, allowing users to inspect price movements with precision. Using SwiftUI Bézier paths and transitions, we created smooth chart-loading animations that respond naturally to user interaction. Each price update features custom digit-scrolling animations tuned with spring physics down to the nanosecond - drawing attention to changes without causing distraction as prices fluctuate rapidly. Haptic feedback provides subtle confirmation when users track specific price points, creating a sense of connection to the market.
FCA regulations demand extensive verification steps that create significant friction in the onboarding journey, so rather than forcing users through a lengthy, intimidating process upfront, we introduced visual checklists and clear signposting to set expectations. Our approach allowed users to begin exploring the app before completing full verification, creating a gradual onboarding experience. We carefully balanced regulatory compliance with user experience, making the process feel transparent and respectful of users' time whilst meeting all legal requirements.
Rapidly changing crypto prices can create confusion and frustration during the order confirmation process, so we designed custom animations that visualise price movements intuitively, clearly communicating whether values were rising or falling before users confirmed their orders. A countdown timer helps users anticipate potential updates, preventing them from feeling overwhelmed by market volatility. By fine-tuning these animations using spring physics, we struck the perfect balance between speed, clarity and user attention - making price fluctuations comprehensible rather than confusing.
New-to-crypto users need a risk-free space to build confidence before committing real funds, so we developed a comprehensive demo trading mode that serves both as a fallback when live trading isn't available and as a learning environment. Users can easily toggle this feature through a prominent control in the Account section. To prevent confusion, we implemented unmistakable visual distinctions throughout the app when in demo mode - including a persistent header label on every screen and a distinct colour palette - reinforcing that trades made were simulated rather than involving actual funds.
Conclusion
In just 18 weeks, Loomery transformed an idea into a pilot-ready app, demonstrating how rapid innovation can thrive even within large financial organisations. Our combination of user research, product strategy, and technical execution delivered not just a product, but a blueprint for future innovation.
What sets this project apart wasn't simply the speed of delivery, but the quality of execution. Working outside our client's typical processes allowed us to embrace modern development practices whilst maintaining the security and reliability expected of a regulated financial product. The result wasn't merely functional - it was thoughtfully crafted, with attention to detail that transformed a good experience into an outstanding one.
