Role: Strategic Product Leader / Product Manager
Client: Finance of America Home Improvement
Domain: FinTech / Lending Platforms / Payments Integration / Digital Finance

Executive Summary

Behind Finance of America Home Improvement’s digital payments evolution lies a customer-centric loan origination platform and a tightly designed suite of APIs that unlock seamless access to its lending ecosystem. By expanding payment capabilities to include Automated Clearing House (ACH) processing on a legacy stack, the team enabled contractors and homeowners to transact more efficiently — reducing friction, increasing conversions, and strengthening bottom-line revenue.

Under Nicole’s strategic product leadership, the payment modernization effort significantly enhanced platform capabilities, aligning customer needs with scalable financial operations.

Context & Challenge

Finance of America Home Improvement faced several cross-cutting challenges:

• Legacy payments infrastructure limited payment options and slowed application throughput

• Customer personas (contractors, homeowners) experienced inconsistent checkout experiences

• Limited data linkage between payments, loan status, and customer engagement

• Measurement systems lacked a structured mechanism to validate impact and drive continuous improvement

Product Leadership Breakdown

Nicole led the initiative using a rigorous product and data-driven framework:

1) User Personas, Needs & Pain Points

Defined primary user profiles:

• Contractors: Needed fast, reliable payments tied to customer approvals

• Homeowners: Demanded transparent payment options with minimal friction

• Ops teams: Required detailed payment outcomes linked to loan data

2) Data Analytics Deep Dive

• Conducted baseline analytics on current payment drop-off rates

• Segmented user flows by device, application type, and payment method

• Identified patterns showing ACH acceptance as a primary conversion blocker

3) Assumptions

Tested hypotheses such as:

• Enabling ACH will reduce payment abandonment

• Real-time payment data improves underwriting decisioning

• Integrated payment analytics drive actionable insights for ops and leadership

4) Problem Validation

• Validated payment intent through user testing, surveys, and funnel analytics

• Benchmarked competitors to understand industry expectations

• Confirmed technical feasibility with engineering, compliance, and finance

5) Define Solutions & MVP

Developed a minimum viable payment expansion roadmap:

• Add ACH payment method

• Tie payment status to loan application progress

• Build API endpoints for payment webhook events

• Improve UI for payments with progressive disclosure

6) Designs, Wireframes & Areas of Improvement

Produced UX flows highlighting:

• Payment option selection

• Progress indicator tied to loan approval status

• Inline error handling for ACH failures

Crafted wireframes to support engineering and UX stories.

7) Engineering & User Stories

Transformed the roadmap into execution via:

• Epic decomposition

• Prioritized sprints based on risk and impact

• Clear acceptance criteria for payment success states and API quality

8) Data Analytics & Measurement Setting

Defined KPIs:

• Payment completion rate

• Loan disbursement time

• Abandonment before funding

• Revenue uplift

Instituted dashboards for real-time monitoring.

9) Future Iterations

Outlined future features:

• Support for recurring payments

• Enhanced fraud and risk scoring

• Multi-currency & payout support

10) Potential Challenges

Anticipated and mitigated:

• Regulatory constraints on ACH processing

• System performance under peak demand

• Third-party provider reliability

Outcomes & Impact

Under Nicole’s leadership, Finance of America Home Improvement achieved a significant increase in customer payment capabilities through the integration of ACH payments into its legacy system — enhancing both customer convenience and financial performance.

This transformation set a new benchmark in Payments + Lending integration, empowering contractors and homeowners alike with faster, more reliable financial interactions.

Skills Demonstrated

• Payments systems modernization

• Product discovery & validation

• Cross-functional leadership

• API design & backend coordination

• Data-driven product decisions

• UX + design collaboration

• Strategic outcomes measurement

Why This Matters

This project illustrates how intentional product leadership and customer-centric analytics can unlock operational and business value in legacy financial platforms — a core competency for modern fintech product leadership roles.

Specific implementation details are available upon request, mindful of company privacy.