Modernizing Debt Issuance Platform
As Product Design Lead, I'm leading the redesign of the debt issuance platform. Replacing a fragmented, legacy debt issuance system at the Funding Corporation of the Farm Credit System with a modern, integrated platform, streamlining operations, strengthening controls, and ensuring reliable market access for the banks and dealers who depend on it.
I lead a team of two designers, working closely with the product lead, business stakeholders, and development teams to redesign how Discount Notes and Bonds are issued across pre-trade, trade, and post-trade, for three distinct user types: the internal finance desk, system banks, and dealers.
The Problem
The legacy debt lifecycle spanned multiple disconnected systems, each handling a fragment of the workflow, with manual handoffs, phone calls, and spreadsheets filling the gaps.
Multiple disconnected systems per bond/DN structure
Manual approvals, phone and email coordination
Spreadsheet-based pricing and allocation
Client
Federal Farm Credit Banks Funding Corporation
Type
Product Design
Year
2026
Process
Discovery Phase
I began by exploring the existing legacy workflows for Discount Note and Bond issuance and assessing the current state of the platform. This step was crucial to understand where manual handoffs, spreadsheets, and verbal coordination were creating risk and inefficiency.
Workflow Mapping
I mapped the end-to-end request-to-post-trade lifecycle across all three user types — the internal finance desk, system banks, and dealers, to understand the many structural edge cases that any redesign needed to handle consistently.
Design Collaboration
Working closely with the product lead and development teams, I compared the present information architecture and workflows with our envisioned future state. This partnership ensured we were creating something both operationally sound and aligned with business and compliance needs.
Visual and Prototype Development
Leading a team of two designers, I directed the creation of prototypes, from low-fidelity wireframes to high-fidelity screens, covering pre-trade, trade, and post-trade for Discount Notes and Bonds. Discovery and workflow insights directly informed the structure of every screen.
Outcome
A clearer, more consistent experience for Discount Note and Bond issuance across three user types, replacing manual, spreadsheet- and verbal-coordination-driven steps with purpose-built screens for every stage of the trade lifecycle.
One consistent design language for pre-trade, trade, and post-trade, instead of each bond structure and user type being handled ad hoc.
A shared requirement and workflow map the broader team, including offshore designers and developers
Interfaces built to surface validation and audit evidence in the moment, rather than relying on after-the-fact, manual reconciliation.
A reusable pattern for pre-trade/trade/post-trade flows that later DPM phases (swaps, designated bonds, reporting) can extend rather than redesign from scratch.
P.S. — This is an ongoing, multi-phase project.
