Fintech · Dublin, Ireland
Customer Portal for an Irish Payments Startup
Emberlane Payments Ltd
Emberlane Payments Ltd needed a secure merchant portal and APIs on a board-visible timeline — replacing payout spreadsheets over email.
Client: Emberlane Payments Ltd · Location: Dublin, Ireland · Industry: Fintech
The problem
Merchants managed payouts through spreadsheets emailed to support. Investors wanted self-serve status, dispute views, and API keys with audit trails before the next board update. Internal tools were patched prototypes.
- No merchant-facing source of truth for payouts
- Support drowning in “where is my money?” tickets
- API access provisioned manually
- Board milestones required demos every two weeks
The solution
Flexus designed and built a production merchant portal with role-based access, audit logging, dispute views, and sandbox API keys — delivered in board-readable milestones.
Our work
Product discovery ran in parallel with architecture so demos never stalled waiting for “final” requirements.
Discovery & threat modeling
Mapped merchant personas, payout states, and abuse cases. Agreed RBAC and audit requirements with Emberlane leadership.
UX for trust-critical flows
Prototyped payout timelines, dispute detail, and API key issuance with explicit empty/error states.
Portal & API platform build
Launched authenticated portal, webhook logs, sandbox keys, and partner docs. Hardened session and permission checks.
Hardening, UAT & launch
Penetration-focused regression, merchant UAT, runbooks, and production cutover with monitoring.
Team time invested
A product-engineering-heavy pod. Hours reflect build intensity across a fixed four-month window.
| Role | Focus | Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Product manager | Milestones, UAT, board demos | 160 |
| UX / UI designer | Portal UX, design system | 180 |
| Backend engineers | APIs, auth, audit log | 520 |
| Frontend engineers | Portal UI, states | 360 |
| QA engineer | Automation, UAT support | 140 |
| Tech lead / architecture | Threat model, reviews | 80 |
| Technical writer | API docs, runbooks | 40 |
Total Flexus effort: ~1,480 hours across 4 months.
Results
The portal reached production in four months. “Where is my payout?” tickets dropped as merchants checked status themselves. Board demos landed on schedule.
- Production portal in 4 months
- Support volume down on payout-status themes
- Self-serve API key issuance for sandbox
- Audit trail available for internal compliance reviews
“They treated the board milestones like product requirements — which is exactly what we needed.”
— CEO, Emberlane Payments Ltd