Mapping the territory
An audit across 10+ product squads, 100+ transaction states.
As Mercado Pago expanded, receipts evolved independently across products — creating fragmented structures, inconsistent hierarchy and growing friction for both users and teams.
The issue wasn't visual inconsistency. It was the absence of a shared structure defining what receipts should contain and how information should be presented.
I led a cross-product audit across more than 100 transaction states, consolidating every variation into a single source of truth.
The framework also needed to scale across Latam markets, balancing standardization with local regulatory requirements.
A sample of what the audit catalogued
Each product evolved its own receipt logic.
At ecosystem scale, that fragmentation translated into user confusion, support ambiguity and slower product development.
Receipts aren't summaries — they're trust interfaces.
Users return to receipts to verify, understand and resolve transactions. The challenge wasn't redesigning receipts — it was designing the system behind them.
The framework
Three layers, one system.
Two information architectures, a defined structure with content rules, and a modular component system. The system itself is the argument — what follows walks through each layer.
Layer 01
Two information architectures.
- Focus on Destination — Who received the payment. Optimized for service payments where users need evidence of who was paid.
- Focus on Origin — Who initiated the transaction. Designed for transfers where evidence of who performed the transaction is the priority.
The same modular system supports both, selected by transaction type rather than product ownership.
Layer 02
A defined structure with content rules.
The system defines what a receipt should contain and how it should be presented — regardless of product or transaction:
- Core structure — a standardized layout for the essential sections of every receipt.
- Information hierarchy — prioritizing amount, status and key details.
- Content rules — consistent naming, formatting and grouping of information.
- Modular components — reusable patterns adapting to different scenarios.
Governance rules clarify what is standardized centrally and what teams can adapt locally.
Layer 03
A modular component kit.
I designed a modular system of mandatory and optional elements — navigation, logo, title, date, amount, operation data — plus optional modules like disclaimers, breakdowns and regulatory blocks for flexibility without losing consistency.
New receipts get assembled by combining existing components. Less design effort, less engineering effort, fewer drift points to maintain. The system grows by composition, not by replication.
The toolkit
Designed for adoption, not just for design.
A framework only works if other teams actually use it — and adoption wasn't immediate. The resistance wasn't about design: squads agreed on the system, but their engineering teams had existing implementations and competing priorities. Rebuilding what already worked wasn't an easy sell.
I built a Figma toolkit and a standardized integration workflow designed to minimize engineering effort — so adopting the framework meant assembling, not rebuilding.
Impact
Trust, reinforced after the fact.
The framework standardized receipts across financial flows, replacing duplicated work with a reusable system.
What had been fragmented across teams became a shared, reliable layer of the Mercado Pago experience.
Trust became part of the infrastructure.