Twenty years designing the systems banks run on.
Two mortgages as the borrower.

I've spent 20 years in design and technology building enterprise systems that solve hard business problems, across T-Mobile, Wilmington Trust, M&T Bank, and Microsoft.

At Wilmington Trust I spent two and a half years inside a regional bank and led the design team that built its first secure digital payment experience, after fraud had already cost the institution mid eight figures. I saw what borrowers actually hit when they try to move money or apply for credit, and I saw how vendor decisions made in a boardroom show up as friction on a borrower's screen months later.

At T-Mobile I earned a U.S. Utility Patent and designed the iOS version of Scam Shield, which stopped over two billion robocalls in its first 18 months. That work taught me how fraud signals shape trust: people abandon anything that feels wrong, even when it's legitimate.

I've also been the borrower. I've completed two mortgages through the same kind of application your institution runs, and I felt every gap your analytics never report.

I built Where Borrowers Leave because I was sick of watching community banks and credit unions get taken advantage of by vendors, and their members pay the price for it. In 2026 I scored 111 Texas banks and credit unions between $1B and $10B in assets across all 45 Borrower Friction Index signals. That research now powers every report and review on this site.

You work with me directly. I go through your application myself, as a well-qualified borrower, and every finding is something I hit on screen, not something a tool flagged or a junior analyst guessed at.

Every engagement is a fixed fee with a fixed scope. When the deliverables are in your hands and the debrief is done, the engagement is closed. No retainer, no upsell pressure, no dependency.

I don't soften findings to protect a vendor relationship, because I don't have one. I'm not selling you a platform, a rebuild, or a migration. The review tells you what's broken, what it's costing you, and what to fix first. What you do with that is your call.

Smart Chic Systems, Inc. is based in Waco, Texas. All client work is delivered by US-based practitioners.