# Syed Ali Murtaza

> Product designer and design engineer. Leading design on core banking at Mal, an AI-first Islamic bank.

Syed Ali Murtaza is a product designer and design engineer with around eight years of experience in fintech and mobility. He grew up in Matiari, a small town in Pakistan, studied Computer Science, and started closer to programming than design. He is currently at Mal, an AI-first Islamic bank, leading design across core banking and contributing to AI, personal finance, credit and the design system. Before Mal he was at Revolut in Madrid, designing 16 financial crime processes across fraud, scams, AML, sanctions and screening. Earlier work spans Majid Al Futtaim (SHARE Rewards: wallet, gift cards, BNPL, credit cards), SadaPay (core banking in Pakistan), Careem (Careem Plus subscriptions and Careem Food) and WebHR (design systems across web, mobile and wearables). Products he has worked on have reached more than 70 million people. He prototypes in code, builds internal tools, and works directly with engineers rather than stopping at Figma.

## Machine access

- [MCP server](https://syedali.me/api/mcp): Model Context Protocol endpoint, Streamable HTTP transport, no authentication. Tools: search_portfolio, get_profile, get_work_history, get_case_studies, read_case_study, list_posts, get_skills, get_highlights.
- [How to connect](https://syedali.me/mcp/): setup for Claude Code, Cursor and others.

## Case studies

- [Financial crime prevention at Revolut](https://syedali.me/revolut/): Designed 16 financial crime processes across scams, fraud, AML, sanctions and screening for the Retail and Business apps, plus the internal case-review tooling compliance teams work in. Presented to the CEO. (656 words)
- [Biometric verification at SadaPay](https://syedali.me/case-studies/sadapay-bvs/): Designed an in-app biometric verification journey that helped customers securely increase their wallet limit from PKR 50,000 to PKR 200,000, removing a compliance bottleneck that was blocking growth. (768 words)
- [Careem Plus](https://syedali.me/case-studies/cplus/): Built Careem Plus from scratch across rides, food, shops and bikes. The experience reached 73% second-month paid retention; when acquisition plateaued at 2.8%, I helped extend the membership to offline partners. (1418 words)

## Experience

- Mal, Product Designer, Dec 2025 - Now: AI-first Islamic bank. Leading the core banking squad, after earlier work across AI, PFM and credit. Also design system governance, and rapid prototyping in Claude Code to validate direction with internal and external testers early.
- Revolut, Product Designer, Apr - Oct 2025: Financial crime prevention at scale. Designed 16 FinCrime flows across scams, fraud, AML and sanctions for the Retail and Business apps, work presented to the CEO, plus the internal CDD tooling compliance teams use to investigate cases.
- Majid Al Futtaim, Senior Product Designer, 2022 - 2024: SHARE Rewards: wallet, cards and loyalty. Led product design for SHARE Rewards through hypergrowth, to 1.4 billion points redeemed and $38.5M revenue. Shipped the digital wallet, digital and physical gift cards, Tabby BNPL, and the FAB SHARE credit card application.
- SadaPay, Product Designer, 2021 - 2022: Pakistan’s fastest-growing mobile bank. Owned end-to-end design for core features, including the Biometric Verification System that cleared a compliance bottleneck blocking growth, plus Request Money, mobile top-ups and bill payments.
- Careem, UX Designer, 2021: Careem Plus and Careem Food, via VentureDive. Embedded with Careem’s core design team on two growth areas, Careem Plus subscriptions and Careem Food, for 48 million users across 13 countries. Built reusable component libraries adopted platform-wide.

## Selected outcomes

- Led product design for SHARE Rewards at Majid Al Futtaim through hypergrowth, to 1.4 billion points redeemed and $38.5M revenue.
- Designed 16 financial crime flows at Revolut across scams, fraud, AML and sanctions, for both the Retail and Business apps; work presented to the CEO.
- Owned the Biometric Verification System at SadaPay, which cleared a compliance bottleneck that was blocking growth.
- Worked on Careem Plus and Careem Food for 48 million users across 13 countries, building reusable component libraries adopted platform-wide.

## Skills

- design: Product design (end to end); Design systems and governance; Interaction and motion design; Design for regulated and compliance-heavy products; Rapid prototyping to validate direction before specification
- research: User research and usability testing; Competitor and market analysis; Story mapping and journey mapping; Impact/effort prioritisation
- engineering: Prototyping in code; React, Astro, Tailwind CSS; Working directly with engineers through implementation and design QA
- domains: Consumer fintech and core banking; Financial crime prevention (fraud, scams, AML, sanctions); Subscriptions and loyalty; Ride-hailing and delivery; HR platforms and wearables

## Other pages

- [Story](https://syedali.me/about/): how he got here.
- [Posts](https://syedali.me/posts/): 31 experiments, prototypes and side projects.
- [Privacy](https://syedali.me/privacy/): what the site collects.

## Contact

- [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/syed-ali-murtaza)