Two markets, one ruler.
In mid-2025, Oney Bank (French, eight million customers, part of Auchan Holding and Groupe BPCE) put a study out to competitive tender: benchmark the customer areas of its competitors in Spain and Portugal, web and app. North won it. I took the client-lead role and ran the delivery: a two-person research team, the product owners of both entities, and a hard date at the end of August.
Delivered on time, both markets: 14 platform analyses · 6 evaluation areas · 194 slides. Oney came back for more.
Know the competition, feature by feature
Oney's Spanish and Portuguese entities wanted to know exactly where they stood: what their competitors offer in their customer areas, how the experience compares, and which features Oney should deploy or strengthen. Recommendations they could act on, with a strict scope: the real products, web and app, in both countries.
Seven platforms per market: the incumbent banks members already use, a leading neobank, and the direct consumer-finance competitors, plus Oney's own customer area, measured with the same criteria.
Real accounts, real users, first-hand
This benchmark ran on three first-hand sources, adapted to each market:
Every platform measured against the same criteria, across six areas: overview and architecture, access and security, core features, advanced features, legal information, and accessibility.
Two decks, one ruler
One deliverable per market: findings per player and area, a comparative digest, and concrete recommendations to strengthen Oney's positioning. Behind each deck sits the raw material: the full customer area of every platform, captured in Figma across web and app, screen by screen and flow by flow. The decks themselves run in English, localized for each market. In all, 194 slides.
Inside, three formats recur: a feature matrix across the players, the real screens side by side, and case studies dissecting the leaders. Those pages hold the competitors' products, so they stay out of the public case; the complete decks, and the Figma flows behind them, are available on request.
From evidence to action
The decks have three layers. Each platform got a read of its own: how it positions itself, the key insights, its strengths and weaknesses, backed by its full captured flow. Each of the six areas got a pattern analysis across the market: what the leaders do and where the opportunity sits. And the top of the report turns both into what Oney came for: per-area recommendations, what to deploy and what to strengthen. That layer is the client's, and it stays with them.
Delivered complete, and it opened doors
I carried it from tender to final presentation: the client relationship with both product owners, the structure of the work covering Spain and Portugal at once, the supervision of the interviews, and the bar for what went into the decks. The fieldwork was the research team's; the outcome was mine to answer for.
Both studies were presented to Oney at the end of August 2025, complete. And the clearest signal it landed: Oney came back, commissioning further benchmark work off the back of them.
