Athena Home Loans
Reimagining home loans with Athena
Athena is a fintech startup on a mission to shake up Australia’s mortgage market. With clever tech and lower fees, their vision is to empower homeowners to save time, money, and stress.
Partnering with Bilue, I helped design and deliver their first mobile app, a platform that turned financial wellness and mortgage management into a simple, intuitive, everyday experience.
The Challenge
Athena’s existing web portal was functional but limited. It didn’t reflect the energy of a challenger brand or live up to the disruptive vision Athena had for the market.
The challenge was to create a game-changing mobile app that gave homeowners full control of their mortgage, while cutting through industry jargon and replacing siloed experiences with a delightful, everyday tool customers could be proud of.
The Basics
Client
Athena Home Loans
My role
Head of Design @Bilue
Year
2022
Athena leadership team
Tim Walter, Jenny Ronald
Bilue team
Jason Wall, Joanna Weinrebe, Keri Farrow, Amanda Maykot
Vision
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Vision *
Our vision went beyond building a mobile app, we wanted to transform the way Australians think about their mortgage. Mortgages are often seen as stressful, confusing, and rigid, but Athena’s challenger spirit gave us the chance to flip that narrative.
We imagined a product that empowered homeowners to:
➸ Feel in control of their finances every single day, not just when something goes wrong.
➸ Engage with confidence, by stripping away industry jargon and creating a transparent, supportive experience.
➸ Take smarter actions, faster, thanks to personalised insights, coaching, and tools that make financial wellness tangible.
In the long run, this app wasn’t just about managing repayments. It was about enabling financial independence. By making complex tasks effortless, Athena could become a trusted partner for customers throughout their property journey, inspiring loyalty, advocacy, and pride.
The ultimate vision was for homeowners to no longer feel like “users of a bank product,” but to feel like champions of Athena’s movement: people who save money, stress less, and actively recommend the brand to others.
The approach
We joined forces with Athena’s founders, design, and product leaders to bring this vision to life. Over nine months, the discovery and design journey included:
➸ Co-designing with the client: working directly with co-founders, design, and product leaders.
➸ Workshops & research: ideation, user testing, exploratory research, prioritisation sessions, and stakeholder alignment.
➸ Lean discovery & design: rapid low-fi wireframes to validate navigation and interactions.
➸ Delivery planning: tech estimations, feature ranking, and MVP definition with product teams.
This collaborative, agile approach enabled us to iterate quickly, solve complex problems, and ensure the app balanced user needs with business objectives.
My role
Discovery planning & facilitation
Co-design workshops and ideation
Stakeholder management (internal & external)
Design leadership & delivery alignment
Active support product and design teams on:
Research synthesis & user testing
Wireframing and navigation design
The product
Instant Payments
Biometric login gives users instant, secure access. Leveraging Australia’s New Payments Platform, customers can send money to 100+ financial institutions in under a minute.
Payees can be added, nicknamed, and edited with ease, creating a seamless, “it just works” experience.
Customise Your Loan
A new repayments tool lets customers take control of their mortgage. They can adjust repayment amounts and frequency, while seeing real-time savings on interest.
Coaching tips guide them to pay down loans faster, removing the need for support calls and saving time for both users and Athena’s team.
Refer A Mate For Rewards
We brought Athena’s referral program front-and-centre in the app, making it easy to share across messaging platforms.
Clear promo rules encourage repeat use, helping Athena gain organic, high-quality leads.
Outcomes
70%
Adoption rate achieved after only four months in the market.
1000s
Of returning daily active users showed improved engagement against web.
5 star
App store reviews from highly engaged customers who are hungry for more.
