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Website for a Swiss digital asset bank

Sygnum

A regulated bank’s website the marketing team can run themselves

Sygnum is the world’s first digital asset bank. I built the custom WordPress platform behind its public website: a block library the marketing team uses to assemble pages without a developer, live cryptocurrency data, and a security posture that satisfies a regulated financial institution.

Role
WordPress Developer
Client
Sygnum — via S-PRO
Timeline
Apr 2022 – Aug 2023
Project type
Fintech / Corporate website
Stack
WordPress, PHP, ACF Pro, Gutenberg, REST API, CoinGecko API, MySQL, JavaScript

About the project

A bank’s website carries an unusual mix of demands. Marketing needs to publish constantly and change layouts on the fly. Compliance needs every claim traceable. Security needs a platform that stands up to the scrutiny a regulated financial institution attracts. And visitors expect live market data that is actually live.

The answer was not a page builder. It was a custom theme with a deliberately small, well-designed library of Gutenberg blocks built on ACF Pro — enough freedom for marketing to build any page they need, inside guardrails that keep spacing, typography and responsive behaviour correct by default.

My role

WordPress Developer

I developed and optimized the features that mattered most to a high-traffic financial website: the custom theme and its block library, the plugin that pulls live market data, and the CRM integrations. Security was not an afterthought — I worked directly with the client’s security team through audits and hardening.

  • Custom theme development
  • Gutenberg block library
  • API integrations
  • Security hardening
  • Performance

What I did

  • Custom theme

    A fully bespoke WordPress theme built around the bank’s design system rather than a commercial template.

  • Gutenberg block library

    Reusable blocks on ACF Pro that let the marketing team assemble dynamic pages with no developer involvement.

  • Live crypto data

    A lightweight plugin fetching and displaying real-time cryptocurrency rates from the CoinGecko API.

  • CRM integration

    Contact and lead forms wired into the client’s CRM so enquiries land where sales actually works.

  • Security hardening

    Audits and hardening carried out together with the client’s in-house security team.

  • Performance work

    Optimization for a high-traffic site with international audiences and strict load expectations.

Technical challenges & solutions

  • Marketing needed freedom, the brand needed guardrails

    A page builder would have let marketing do anything — including quietly breaking the brand on every landing page. Locking the layouts down would have put a developer in the queue for every campaign.

    Built a custom Gutenberg block library on ACF Pro: content, images and order are fully editable, while spacing, typography and responsive behaviour stay correct by default. Freedom inside guardrails.

  • Live market data on a page that must stay fast

    Cryptocurrency rates change constantly, but calling an external API on every page load makes the site hostage to that API’s latency and uptime.

    Wrote a lightweight dedicated plugin that fetches CoinGecko data on its own schedule and caches it, so the page renders instantly whether or not the upstream service is having a good day.

  • A regulated bank’s security expectations

    A financial institution’s website is a standing target, and a generic WordPress install does not meet that bar.

    Worked directly with the client’s security team through audits and hardening rather than treating security as a launch checklist item.

Impact & outcomes

  • Marketing ships without waiting

    Campaign pages get built by the marketing team, not queued behind a developer.

  • Live data, stable pages

    Real-time crypto rates without tying page speed to a third-party API.

  • Security signed off

    Hardening and audits completed alongside the bank’s own security team.

  • Brand stays consistent

    Every page is assembled from blocks that cannot drift off the design system.

Get in touch

Hiring for a WordPress role?

Send me the job description or a few lines about the team and the stack — I’ll get back to you within 1–2 business days.