01 · Consumer credit · Russia
Embedded credit that felt like part of the debit product.
Built Kubyshka from zero inside the Tinkoff Black ecosystem and scaled it through proposition, eligibility, pricing, product flows and portfolio economics.
A reserve, not another loan funnel.
Debit customers occasionally needed liquidity, but a conventional loan journey would add friction and break the relationship they already understood. The product needed to be available at the right moment, simple to use and controlled by a high-quality eligibility model.
The hard part was not the interface. It was joining customer value, approval, pricing, technical constraints and portfolio behaviour into one product system.
The product was successful only if it felt simple to the customer and remained measurable underneath.
Make a complex credit product explain itself.
The mechanics were unusual: a revolving reserve inside a debit account, pre-approved access, daily fees and clear repayment rules. The interface had to make the product feel safe and understandable without turning it into another long loan application.
I worked through the flow in detail, but kept the first interaction deliberately small: one compact card inside the existing account. It stated the value in plain language and opened the deeper explanation only when the customer needed it. Minimal surface, transparent mechanics behind it.
The principle remains visible: introduce the proposition in one compact surface and keep the detailed mechanics one step deeper.
Owned the product beyond the backlog.
- Product proposition and detailed customer flows built around trust, transparency and minimal friction
- Pre-approved eligibility, approval quality and product-risk trade-offs
- Pricing, monetisation, LTV and portfolio-level product metrics
- Roadmap, specifications, dashboards and the experiment loop
- Alignment across risk, analytics, design, engineering and commercial teams
Three choices that shaped the product.
Make credit feel native
The product could not feel like a separate loan application. The experience, language and availability had to fit the existing debit relationship.
Treat eligibility as product
Pre-approval was not a back-office rule. It shaped the proposition, conversion, customer trust and the quality of the portfolio entering the funnel.
Manage the whole loop
Activation, utilisation, repayment behaviour, margin and risk were connected. Shipping the feature was the beginning of the product work, not the end.
The product is still visible in the market.
Public materials explain Kubyshka as a bank-provided reserve available to T-Bank debit-card customers. They are useful context for the proposition; the ownership and outcome above describe my work on building and scaling it.