Turning tax-credit trading into a consumer-grade experience.

Tokebì is a marketplace developed by ESBLink SRL to simplify the purchase and sale of Italian tax credits. The idea came from a problem I experienced firsthand while working in tax and legal consulting, where businesses regularly generated transferable tax credits but faced enormous difficulty when trying to sell them.

Between 2020 and 2023, Italy’s financial system became heavily congested. Banks often needed six to eight months to complete the due diligence required to acquire tax credits, creating bottlenecks for both sellers and buyers. The process was slow, fragmented, and weighed down by layers of complexity that often added little practical value.

Rather than accepting the existing model, I studied the workflow end to end. My goal was to understand where inefficiencies began, which activities were genuinely necessary, and how to design a compliant process that could move dramatically faster.

Rethinking due diligence

After analyzing hundreds of operational steps, regulatory requirements, and industry practices, I designed an entirely new workflow that could reduce a process traditionally measured in months to a maximum of twelve days.

The challenge was not simply speed. Every stage had to remain fully compliant with Italian regulations. Tokebì’s methodology was built around regulatory requirements from the start and presented to the relevant institutions and authorities to ensure transparency and compliance.

Sellers joining the platform complete a structured due diligence process and upload the documentation related to the projects that generated their tax credits. To support this workflow, I designed a detailed validation framework and verification checklist so that every case could be reviewed consistently and accurately.

Applications that did not meet legal or operational requirements were returned for further documentation or rejected entirely. Only verified opportunities could move forward and become available on the marketplace.

From complexity to clarity

One of the project’s most technically demanding challenges involved the Italian fiscal ledger system. A single tax profile can contain thousands of entries, making it exceptionally difficult for users to identify and manage individual credits efficiently.

Tokebì solves this by automatically processing uploaded fiscal data and separating individual tax credits according to the specific projects from which they originated. What was once buried in highly technical documentation becomes immediately understandable and manageable.

Once approved, sellers can publish their credits independently and set their asking price. Buyers can then browse available opportunities through a marketplace experience designed to feel familiar, intuitive, and accessible.

Designing trust at every step

A significant part of my work focused on product design and user experience. Before creating the platform, I conducted extensive research into existing banking solutions, industry workflows, and user expectations to understand why so many people perceived tax credits as intimidating and inaccessible.

The insight was clear. The market did not need more complexity. It needed confidence, clarity, and guidance.

In response, I redesigned the entire experience around simplicity and transparency. Every interaction was carefully crafted to help users understand what they were doing, why they were doing it, and what would happen next.

One of the most distinctive concepts introduced in Tokebì was a visual representation of tax credits. Rather than showing them as anonymous rows of financial data, each credit was linked to a uniquely generated colored character inspired by collectible systems in modern digital products.

This playful approach transformed something traditionally seen as highly technical into an experience that felt approachable and engaging, while preserving the seriousness required for financial transactions. The goal was never to trivialize the product, but to make it less intimidating for legitimate business owners and entrepreneurs.

Building a marketplace for everyone

The purchasing journey followed the same philosophy. I conceptualized the entire marketplace and checkout experience, allowing buyers to search, evaluate, select, and purchase tax credits through a streamlined digital process supported by electronic signatures and integrated payment flows.

Unlike a traditional ecommerce platform, however, every step was designed to support informed decision making. Users were guided through the evaluation process with clear information and safeguards, ensuring they understood the nature of the assets they were purchasing.

Because compliance checks were completed before publication, buyers could browse opportunities with much greater confidence. Credits that failed legal or operational validation never appeared on the marketplace, building a higher level of trust throughout the ecosystem.

The result was a platform capable of making tax-credit trading accessible not only to specialists and advisors, but to any eligible Italian company or VAT-registered business looking to participate in the market.

Outcome and leadership

Tokebì became the first platform of its kind to operate in the Italian market, introducing a fundamentally different approach to buying and selling tax credits. By combining regulatory rigor, operational efficiency, and user-centered design, it demonstrated that even highly complex financial processes can become intuitive digital experiences.

My role extended across the full product lifecycle. As Concept Designer, Product Manager, Product Designer, and Project Executive, I led the product vision, defined the operational model, designed the user experience, structured the marketplace logic, coordinated stakeholders, and guided the project from concept through execution.

Tokebì remains one of the most ambitious products I have worked on. It represents the intersection of strategic thinking, process innovation, product leadership, and experience design, proving that complexity does not have to be accepted as a limitation when it can become an opportunity for innovation.