Learn how you can Unlock Limitless Customer Lifetime Value with CleverTap’s All-in-One Customer Engagement Platform.
Consumer interest in Fintech apps was strong ahead of the pandemic. Consumers accessed finance apps over one trillion times in 2019, eager to improve their financial wellness and increasingly comfortable making payments on mobile. This was double the number in 2018. And 2020’s global events and growing uncertainty drove app downloads and session numbers into the stratosphere.
This dynamic firmly cements Fintech apps as our collective go-to for advice and assistance on ways to save, invest, and spend money. But heightened use and interest in Fintech apps don’t always translate into high retention and lasting loyalty. Achieving those ambitious targets requires financial technology companies to do more — and work smarter.
This means tapping segmentation to customize messages and educate users throughout the onboarding process. Further down the funnel, it’s about harnessing deep insights and data to map user journeys and pinpoint the best times to nudge or remind users to pay their bills or manage their accounts.
In the case of MOVii, a leading mobile wallet and challenger bank in Colombia, engagement is the first step to empowerment. The company is on a mission to encourage greater financial inclusion by providing products that allow customers to handle and move their money as simply as they use cash today.
Appearing as a guest on the Reimagine Growth podcast miniseries, Hernando Rubio, MOVii CEO and Co-Founder, talks candidly about his goal to make his company the “main digital platform in the country through which all Colombians — including those not currently served by financial institutions — can access the financial system and transform their lives.”
Rubio also shares his blueprint for app onboarding and education, ensuring users “get unstuck and get assistance” when they encounter problems or simply have questions. Finally, he reveals how a smarter approach to segmentation, enabled by CleverTap, allowed him to reduce monthly churn by 82% — from 17% to 3% — and drive record numbers of mobile transactions.
For Rubio, there are two ways to fight inequality in society. One is education. Education allows individuals to break the vicious cycle of poverty that results when neither individuals nor their children can learn skills to improve their lives and livelihoods.
The other, he says, is giving access to financial services, such as loans. Understanding the interplay between the two, and drawing from personal experience, has driven Rubio to develop financial services that are accessible to, and understood by, everyone.
Rubio knows firsthand what can happen when people who are disenfranchised by the banking system must depend on other players but then must pay a hefty price. When he was 21 years old, he needed a loan to help his family. When the bank refused, his only option was to seek help elsewhere. Rubio got his loan, but the transaction was closer to extortion because the loan sharks demanded extremely high interest rates and brutally beat Rubio when he couldn’t make payments. “I was thinking about revenge,” Rubio recalls. “And then I realized the clever way to do it, and that’s what we’re building at MOVii.”
Today, MOVii powers “a beautiful cycle of inclusion,” Rubio says. “We have digital, we have an app, and we have a way to reach people and educate users to be a part of society.” The approach positively impacts people because it treats them as individuals every step of the journey. “It’s important to treat each one of your customers as individuals and make them feel like you know and understand them very well,” he explains. To do that, you have to have the right tools.
“This is where using CleverTap has helped us understand each customer’s journey and the segment that person falls into,” Rubio says. Learning how users get into the app and what they are using it for in the first place allows MOVii to surface offers and education that add the most value at the critical moment. 
With CleverTap, Rubio says, his company understands the complete customer lifecycle and the stages where users should be — depending on where they come from and what they intend to do.
“If a user gets stuck at a point in the funnel and they stop doing something, we know it, and we can do something to remove the friction and help them get through the app and to the services and transactions they want.”
A prime example is the registration process, where the law requires customers to provide a selfie, proof of identity, and proof of address. “We were seeing that people got stuck there, and we could immediately send [a message] saying we understand why they got stuck and we are helping them to continue in the funnel.”
This ability to kick off a timely and relevant conversation is a bonus for MOVii because it drives the use of their products. But, more importantly, it deepens customer loyalty. “That customer has the feeling that MOVii is thinking about me. They see when I have a problem, and they do something about it,” Rubio says. “And that’s the best consumer service there is.”
It’s a scenario where push is the high performer.
“Push notifications are really helping us to reduce churn,” Rubio says. It sits at the center of an engagement strategy that has allowed MOVii to reduce churn from 17% to 3% (as of March 2020). It’s an impressive result he links to the timing and tone of push notifications. “People have this moment where they feel, ‘Wow, that’s great, they’re listening to me, I don’t have to call them, I don’t have to text them, I don’t have to do anything. They’re always thinking about me, and they solved my problem with a solution as soon as I needed it.'”
The ability to personalize push notifications, improve segmentation, increase retention, and extract more insights from audience data, have combined to help MOVii fuel impressive growth. Since its launch in 2018, MOVii has rapidly increased its customer base to reach over 1.1 million customers, including 200,000 people who rely on the app to receive welfare payments and manage their financial lives. In 2020, MOVii also forged partnerships with organizations including global consumer goods company Procter & Gamble to bridge the country’s credit gap and bring relief to local businesses impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns.
TL;DR: Fintech apps are one of the fastest-growing app categories. Record numbers of users are reaching for them regularly to achieve financial well-being and plan for the future.
But this positive outcome is multiplied when companies open opportunities and remove the friction.
In practice, this means using push notifications to assist and educate users based on a deep understanding of what they want to accomplish. But it’s not enough to ensure everyone is on the same page about how to use your app.
Be ready to provide the right assistance at every step of the journey. This means reading the data signals to understand where and when your users get stuck in the funnel and deliver relevant push notifications to help them on their way.
The outcome can boost transactions and, ultimately, boost your bottom line. But the biggest payoff may be the lasting loyalty of users who want to reward you for having their interests at heart.
To learn more about how MOVii is reimagining growth, tune in to the entire interview.
Listen to “How MOVii Makes Personal Financial Services More Personal and Inclusive” on Spreaker.
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