Changing financial behaviors can be challenging, especially for micro- and small enterprises, who often lack time and must balance many aspects of their business simultaneously. In 2021, Flourish Fi partnered with Mastercard Strive to focus on digitizing and building better financial habits for micro- and small entrepreneurs in Brazil. Flourish Fi uses behavioral science, gamification, and artificial intelligence to drive behavior change. Our technology engages users in a rewarding financial journey, increasing loyalty to the financial institution while reinforcing good financial habits for the end user. 

As part of our project with Mastercard Strive, Flourish Fi partnered with financial service providers in Brazil that serve micro-enterprises and small businesses to test different digital approaches to encourage positive habits from their customers. This post shares some key insights and lessons we learned through discovery research, our partnerships, and resulting outcomes. 

Discovery research: understanding the financial needs of micro- and small enterprises

To better understand micro- and small entrepreneurs, the first step was a deep-dive research to learn about these entrepreneurs and their difficulties, aspirations, and habits. As part of the discovery phase of this project, Flourish Fi worked with two Mastercard Strive partners, Aliança Empreendedora and Central Única das Favelas, both nonprofits in Brazil with a deep understanding of micro-enterprises, particularly those based in favelas. Flourish conducted in-depth interviews with 18 micro-enterprise owners from across Brazil. All were between 27 and 55 years old, and most were women. Flourish Fi asked them about their goals, needs, and difficulties regarding finances, digitalization, and their daily lives. 

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From these insights, Flourish Fi generated four fictional personas correlated with traditional gamification archetypes, which were outlined in a previous blog post. These personas offered a foundational understanding of these micro-enterprise owners and formed a basis for identifying behavioral science elements that could be applied to solutions presented to partners.

Identifying partners with a shared understanding of micro- and small enterprises

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With our personas defined, it was time to look for partners in the Brazilian financial ecosystem to apply and test the previous learnings of using game elements to develop better money habits for micro-entrepreneurs. Those partners were Juvo, Justa and Will Bank—Brazilian financial institutions with solutions destined for this audience. 

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It is interesting to note that even though they targeted micro- and small enterprises, they also offered very different products. Juvo is a financial institution whose main product is a personal loan, the collateral of which is the client’s mobile phone. will bank is a digital bank that has a vast portfolio of banking solutions for both entrepreneurs and individuals. Justa is a digital bank that offers solutions for small business. Flourish Fi’s modular technology was used in different ways with each partner to adapt to their end-user needs and business goals.

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Flourish Fi + Juvo: “Rota premiada” 

From the partnership between Juvo and Flourish Fi, a new feature, “Rota premiada” (“award-winning route”), was created using Flourish Fi’s “Missions” module. In this feature, users completed missions to earn points and have the chance to win rewards. Users earned points in two ways: by completing missions of building an on-time loan payment streak (for a streak, users need to repay their loan on time three months in a row) and by earning points for correct answers in the financial knowledge module. Those points could later be used to open “mystery boxes” in which they could earn vouchers for R$75 and R$150.

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During the partnership, over 100 participants got vouchers after acquiring points and opening mystery boxes. Also, almost 67 percent of engaged users on “Missions” completed their payments on time, versus 57 percent of non-engaged users.

“I am very curious. When I saw ‘Rota premiada’ I thought: ‘What is this?’And I ended up winning two times! ” —Debora, Juvo customer and micro-entrepreneur

Flourish Fi + will bank:  “Caderninho” 

will bank used Flourish Fi’s “Missions” module to incentivize the adoption of a new feature for micro-entrepreneurs, called “Caderninho” (“little notebook”). The goal of the new feature was to help micro-entrepreneurs keep records of their expenses and earnings. will bank tested three versions: Group A did not have access to the feature (acting as the control group), Group B had  access to the recording-keeping feature without the “Missions” module, and Group C had access to a gamified version of the feature. 

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will bank’s test found that the variant using Flourish Fi’s “Missions” module had the best performance (Group C); almost double the number of users who interacted with the module completed tasks compared to those who did not have access to it.

“We were able to show that having gamification on that product increased engagement and final result by 80 percent.” —Emilio, will bank Head of Products

Flourish Fi + Justa: Quiz Justo

Justa applied Flourish Fi’s “Financial Knowledge” module to develop Quiz Justo. After answering financial trivia questions, users received points according to their performance, unlocking badges. Once they earned a certain number of badges, users were eligible to redeem a discount on internal fees (such as those included in the use of POS devices) as a reward.

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Learnings from our partnership highlighted in new publication

To showcase how gamification elements and behavioral components can enable financial institutions to help their micro- and small business customers establish financial health, Flourish Fi and Mastercard Strive published a paper, identifying insights and considerations, both from their partners and from the design process. These lessons are valuable considerations for others interested in driving positive financial habits for micro- and small businesses through behavioral science.  

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  • Partnerships are ever-evolving and require continuous effort to ensure behavioral projects remain mutually beneficial. Having a clear understanding of multiple stakeholder perspectives, in addition to their specific goals and KPIs, can facilitate the decision-making process and determine the necessary technology to improve results with clients. 
  • A deep understanding of end users ensures behavioral science modules are tailored to a partner’s customer base. When Flourish Fi researched and interviewed micro- and small entrepreneurs, they learned more about their daily lives, difficulties, priorities, and aspirations. Once this information was consolidated into personas, it was easier to understand how similar or dissimilar a partner’s existing customers were from those personas.
  • Timing matters when applying behavioral science approaches to small businesses. A deep understanding of target users is vital for timing interventions to have the greatest impact — you will know when, where, and how to achieve the best results. 
  • Behavioral data has the potential to de-risk other small business financial products. With gamified micro-content, partners can measure how much a customer understands financial topics and use this information to de-risk other financial transactions. 
  • Rewards must have perceived value to motivate small businesses. The perceived value of rewards can be context-specific, and providers are encouraged to understand which rewards their users will most value. Flourish Fi found that micro-enterprise owners are more motivated when they perceive that a goal or a reward impacts their lives personally.

Read the full report, “Using behavioral science and gamification to drive positive financial behaviors: Lessons from Brazil for micro- and small enterprises” and join us in our webinar wednesday (11/27)