Digital Inclusion

Alfi

Team Leader

Andrea Segura

Solution Name:

Alfi

One-line solution summary:

Marketplace of financial products based on financial education.

Pitch your solution.

Alfi is a platform and technological app for financial education and inclusion that connects for free, and gamifies all people with the financial system, raising their financial health. We are pioneers in the use of new technological tools applied to financial education and inclusion and we mix, gamification techniques, serious games & behavioral economics with accessible technology.
We transform financial users in the traditional market into sustainable financial clients for the future.
Through artificial intelligence we profile the user according to their likes and preferences.
We create an adapted game using financial products as a base scenario for serious game, Alfi is oriented towards decision making, modeled with real day-to-day scenarios. Alfi combines different learning methodologies, complementary to each other to present a product of agile understanding.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

Latin America is the most unequal region in the world (OECD, 2020) this is graphed in its large indicators of financial exclusion and financial illiteracy (CAF, 2019).

According to a latest OECD study, more than 70% of the Latin American population is considered FINANCIAL ILLITERATE. This is the trigger for other problems: 70% of families are over-indebted, 60% of people with debt in the financial system, and 61% are out of the financial system.
Only 39% of people are included in the financial system (the world average being 50%), this means USD$3.2 trillion that are not formally in the economy

What is your solution?

Through business intelligence Alfi connects users with the appropriate financial products offered by the company's partners, according to the user's needs.

We are helping together with our partners to create the new sustainable financial system.
We are pioneers in the use of new technological tools applied to financial education and inclusion such as machine learning fused with disruptive techniques such as gamification, serious gaming and the implementation of cognitive processes of behavioral economy.

To adapt the platform to the profiles and preferences of each user and thus provide them with a personalized experience creating the perfect scenario based on real financial products and information of interest, generating the necessary commitment and presenting a product of agile understanding.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

Our solution is built for a target of people from 25 to 34 years of age (millennial public), as well as for a digital target initially and non-digital leveraged by alliances and partners with multilateral organizations.

We seek to be a solution to financial illiteracy in Latin America and to reduce the major indicators of financial exclusion in the region.
• Latin American population: 626,000,000
• Financial illiterates in Latin America (60%): 375,600,000 (OECD source)
Size of our market: 375 million Latin Americans with purchasing power, who have not consumed any financial product.
We connect people with financial products. Through gamification and user profiling we derive leads, already filtered, to financial institutions within our platform. In addition, due to the gaming experience, it reduces the degree of distrust and increases the placement of real financial products from our allies (up to 50% more than the market average).

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Scale safe and private digital identity and financial tools to allow people and small businesses to thrive in the digital economy.

Explain how the problem you are addressing, the solution you have designed, and the population you are serving align with the Challenge.

It is essential to provide people the necessary financial education that provides tools to overcome this stage. We educate people financially through a serious, personalized, accessible and gamified game, under OECD metrics, reducing in our users the level of mistrust and ignorance about the financial system, making them work on the real reals of the day linked to different financial products. Within an attractive and controlled environment, delivering their mistakes avoiding making them in the real financial world, reducing their delinquency and debt rates, obtaining greater sources of income and raising their quality of life.

In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?

Mexico City, CDMX, México

What is your solution’s stage of development?

Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth.

Explain why you selected this stage of development for your solution.

We create a unique ecosystem that multiplies value between different types of stakeholders in Latin-America, from governments to private strategic allies. Giving public and private value in education and financial inclusion.

We have signed agreements with:
-Secretariat of Education of Mexico, to impact 4M young people, promoting Financial Education in public schools.
- National Commission of the Retirement Savings System (CONSAR), impacting a captive audience of 64M people, promoting and encouraging Retirement Savings.
- We have made alliances with multilateral organizations (USAID) to reach people in rural community areas. 150,000 people are currently using Alfi to learn and connect with their first financial product.
On the banking side:
- Having BBVA as a client, Alfi as an instrument to change the profile and insights of current clients, people and companies (First accounts, credits and products for companies.)
- Credifondo, Alfi as an instrument to bring closer the final millennial user (Investment products and mutual funds).

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Victor Manuel Morales Benavides

https://www.soyalfi.com/

If you have additional video content that explains your solution, provide a YouTube or Vimeo link here:

Which of the following categories best describes your solution?

A new technology

What makes your solution innovative?

We have validated a large and growing market, generally this problem is addressed with very technical and complex solutions, aimed at a public specialized in finance or economics, also with quite traditional solutions that do not have a significant impact on society, and digital solutions such as financial Wellness, Finerio, Goonder, etc.

We educate and financially include people through a single digital channel.

The value as a precept: Our financial education value has attracted the attention of different global actors to generate empirical evidence to improve public policies with our fintech.

Own market: The markets are secured with the market makers, ministries are and trust Alfi.

Without integration: Our model is not invasive neither for the end user nor for financial companies, we use alternative methods for the communication of information in order to speed up the business closing processes.

Facing the end user, within an attractive and controlled environment, they learn from their mistakes avoiding making them in the real financial world, achieving financial health.

For clients, we offer financial-banking institutions a digital channel for the placement of their products, in addition to providing them with the necessary information to create different and better financial products.

Please select the technologies currently used in your solution:

Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
Behavioral Technology
Software and Mobile Applications

Select the key characteristics of your target population.

Women & Girls
Pregnant Women
LGBTQ+
Infants
Children & Adolescents
Rural
Urban
Poor
Low-Income
Middle-Income
Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations

Which of the UN Sustainable Development Goals does your solution address?

1. No Poverty
4. Quality Education
10. Reduced Inequality

In which countries will you be operating within the next year?

Colombia
Puerto Rico

In which countries do you currently operate?

Bolivia
Chile
Mexico
Peru

How many people does your solution currently serve? How many will it serve in one year? In five years?

Active users: 150,000

Month to month recurrence: 55%
Average usage time: 45% (30-60 minutes a week)
Financial literacy: 49% (according to OECD administrators)
Financial inclusion: 35% of all users bought their first financial product
Educational institutions using Alfi: 57

How are you measuring your progress toward your impact goals?

We will launch the first “Live” indicator of Financial Education correlated between Mexico, Peru, Chile, Bolivia and Colombia. With the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center and World Bank methodology.

We measure the level of Financial Literacy, under the OECD metrics.
The percentage of Financial Inclusion within the platform.

What type of organization is your solution team?

For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models

How many people work on your solution team?

14 - Full time

How long have you been working on your solution?

3 years

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

CEO- Victor Morales, Lic. In Administration and Finance, Investment Analyst certified by the BVL. With experience in managing portfolios, operations in the secondary market and futures, an investment expert in Private Banking and Stock Brokerage Companies with more than 11 years of experience.

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vi...
CSO- Andrea Segura, Lic. In Business Management and Direction, with more than 7 years of experience in the areas of financial resources, commercial strategy, public relations, programming and budgeting, project management, project planning and strategic thinking.
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/an...
COO- Carlos Vargas, Commercial Engineer, MBA Corporate Finance and Economic Evaluation. With more than 30 years of experience in the banking sector and a broad domain of Strategic Management, Marketing and Quantitative Techniques.
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ca...
CTO- Luis Cavagna, Bachelor of Administration with a major in Information Technology, with more than 15 years directing technology companies mainly Software, experience in data analysis and business intelligence, project management and direction of development areas.
CFO- Roberto Vargas, Lic. In Economics, Entrepreneur, expert in governmental, political, economic and business affairs. With more than 15 years of experience in Peru and abroad, in the public and private sector.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ro...
Digital Marketing Specialist - Jeimy Antezana, BA in Commercial Engineering and Diploma in Digital Marketing, with 3 years of experience in the Digitization of Entrepreneurship, Sales, Content Manager, Human Resources and Project Innovation.
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/je...
UX and Content-Josue Salas, Psychologist specialized in the social and organizational area with experience in product development with a focus on economic behavior.

What is your approach to building a diverse, equitable, and inclusive leadership team?

We are a multinational strong team, with experience, new ideas and different paths to forward. Some of us met because we studied at the same university and the idea of the project bigger and bigger, until we met some others in the financial and banking ecosystem, being meticulous and complementing each other according to the experience that each one has .

We have been working together for approximately 3 years. All completely blended. The skills and expertise of each of the members allow us to develop efficient work in accordance with the demands of the project, respecting the established times.

Do you primarily provide products or services directly to individuals, to other organizations, or to the government?

Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)

Why are you applying to Solve?

We want to and would love to be a part of digital inclusion beacause we are the deposit motivated by the fact that we are solving because it motivates us by increasing financial literacy and inclusion. In daily life we can observe people with over-indebtedness, liens, delinquencies and different financial problems; This concerns us in such a way that it led us to create an innovative financial education and inclusion solution; a totally free platform and application that connects people with the financial system in a playful way, trying to remove the financial and learning paradigms, achieving the massification of non-traditional financial products that can generate a significant increase in the quality of life of people, achieving greater profitability in less time and thus improving the financial health of people. We believe in our solution and the disruptive way in which we are attacking the problem, reaching thousands of people to have an extraordinary impact.

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?

Financial (e.g. improving accounting practices, pitching to investors)
Public Relations (e.g. branding/marketing strategy, social and global media)
Monitoring & Evaluation (e.g. collecting/using data, measuring impact)

Please explain in more detail here.

We have an ecosystem approach and we serve governments and market makers through academia, multilaterals, and development organizations, while at the same time fostering competition between financial products and services.

Giving public and private value in education and financial inclusion.

What organizations would you like to partner with, and how would you like to partner with them?

We will seek to establish alliances with:
• Regulators of the financial system, ministries of education and other entities involved in national financial education strategies (in each country).
• Organizations with global financial education initiatives such as the GFLEC (University of Washington), OECD, IDB, Ministries of education and inclusion.
• Fintech and Edtech Associations in each country.
• Accelerators and related institutions specialized in Fintech and Edtech.
** With this we aim to reduce risk, uncertainty, achieve the definition of activities and the acquisition of specific resources, achieving alliances to develop new businesses and supplier-buyer relationships ensuring a reliable supply.