Building the intelligence layer behind Xpence
From a static marketing website to a fully operational AI-enabled platform — complete with a CRM, subscription engine, mobile app, and a backend management system built for scale.
Client
Xpence
Industry
Fintech · B2B
Region
UAE · MENA
Scope
Full Build
A fintech platform rethinking business spend in the MENA region
Xpence is a UAE-headquartered B2B spend management platform designed for the modern MENA business — offering smart corporate cards, automated expense tracking, and real-time financial visibility for SMEs and growing enterprises.
The cost of building a fintech with no backbone
When Xpence came to us, they had a product vision, a growing user waitlist, and a branding framework — but no technical foundation to convert interest into customers, or customers into retained users.
No subscription infrastructure
New users were being manually onboarded via email chains. There was no self-serve flow, no plan management, and no automated billing — creating bottlenecks that made scaling impossible.
Invisible back office
The team had no internal dashboard to manage customer accounts, view usage data, or action support tickets. Every admin task required developer intervention and direct database access.
No intelligence in the product
The platform had no AI layer — no spend insights, no anomaly detection, no smart categorisation. In a market that increasingly expects financial intelligence as a baseline, this was a competitive liability.
A complete software ecosystem — not a website
Fifth Labs led the full-stack development of Xpence's technology layer. This was not a redesign or a UI polish — it was a ground-up build of every system the business needed to operate, scale, and compete.
AI-Enabled Marketing Website
A fully rebuilt, conversion-optimised web presence with intelligent CTA routing, dynamic content, and integrated lead capture that feeds directly into the CRM.
New Subscription CRM
A purpose-built backend CRM managing the full subscriber lifecycle — from first-touch to paid activation — with plan management, billing logic, and automated comms.
Mobile App UI Design
End-to-end UI/UX design for the Xpence mobile application — spending analytics, AI score visualisation, account management, and the transaction layer — built for handoff to dev.
Backend Management System
A secure internal dashboard for the Xpence ops team — customer account control, live usage metrics, support tooling, and revenue reporting in one unified interface.
AI Intelligence Layer
Embedded AI capabilities including smart spend categorisation, anomaly detection, the Serity Score risk engine, and predictive budget insights — trained on MENA spending patterns.
Support System Development
A structured customer support infrastructure — ticketing, knowledge base, escalation workflows — enabling the Xpence team to respond and resolve without engineering overhead.
Discovery to deployment — our engineering approach
We embedded a cross-functional team across Fifth Labs and Fifth Corp: product architects, full-stack engineers, AI specialists, and UX designers working in a single development track.
Discovery & Systems Architecture
We began with a structured discovery sprint — mapping the full user journey from website visitor to active subscriber, identifying every integration point (payment, CRM, mobile, analytics), and defining the data models that would connect every system. Architecture was documented before a single line of code was written.
CRM & Subscription Engine Build
The CRM was the first critical infrastructure built — a custom subscription management system handling plan selection, user provisioning, billing integration, and automated lifecycle communications. Built on a serverless architecture for cost-efficiency at any scale.
AI Layer Development
Our AI engineering team developed and integrated the intelligence layer — training the Serity Score model on financial risk indicators, building the categorisation engine, and wiring the anomaly detection system into the real-time transaction feed. Every AI feature was built to be explainable and auditable.
Website & Front-End Engineering
The marketing website was rebuilt from the ground up on Next.js — with server-side rendering for SEO performance, AI-driven content personalisation based on company size and role, and a frictionless onboarding flow wired directly to the new CRM. Every page was benchmarked against Soldo and Pleo for conversion architecture.
Mobile App UI & Backend Management System
Concurrent to back-end work, our design engineering team produced the full mobile app interface — all screens, states, and interactive patterns — and built the internal admin dashboard. Both were designed and tested with actual Xpence team members, iterated based on operational feedback before final handoff.
Built on the right tools for production-grade fintech
Every technology choice was made to serve the product's needs: performance under financial data loads, security for sensitive business information, and the extensibility to add new features without rearchitecting from scratch.
Frontend
- Next.js 14
- TypeScript
- Tailwind CSS
- Framer Motion
- React Hook Form
Backend & CRM
- Node.js / Express
- PostgreSQL
- Prisma ORM
- Stripe Billing
- Redis (Caching)
AI & Intelligence
- OpenAI API
- Python / FastAPI
- Custom ML Models
- LangChain
- Vector Embeddings
Infrastructure
- AWS (EC2, S3, RDS)
- Vercel (Front-end)
- Docker / CI/CD
- Sentry Monitoring
- Postman / Swagger
From zero infrastructure to a scalable product
Xpence launched with a complete operational stack. The team went from manually managing every new signup to running an automated, intelligent platform — capable of acquiring, activating, and retaining business customers without engineering bottlenecks.
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