Alfi
Alfi is a technological platform and application for financial education and inclusion that connects for free, fun, accessible and gamified to all people with the financial system. Use techniques such as gamification, serious play, behavioral economics and machine learning to adapt the platform to the profiles and modifications of each user, creating the perfect scenario based on real financial products and information of interest so that they learn to make decisions about their money, managing to reduce their delinquency and debt rates, obtaining greater sources of income and raising their quality of life (financial health).
Our platform is backed by behavioral economics and gamification techniques, such as the presentation of playful letters, virtual money, ranking, medals, audiovisual material, etc. needed and filtered for each type of user. Our metrics are based on studies and recommendations from international institutions such as the OECD, the IDB and Standard & Poor's.
Latin America is the most unequal region in the world (OECD, 20) charted in its large indicators of financial exclusion and financial illiteracy (CAF, 19).
According to a latest OECD study, more than 60% of the Latin American population is considered a FINANCIAL ANALPHABET, which is when at least one of the following items is unknown: interest rate, risk, profitability and inflation. This is the trigger for other problems such as: 70% of families are over indebted, 60% of youth with debt, 61% of adults outside the financial system. Due to this problem we consider increasing the level of education and financial inclusion when creating Alfi.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, only 39% of people are included in the financial system (the world average being 50%), 61% of people are excluded, this means 3.2 trillion dollars that are not formally in the economy and could mean a financial income of almost $ 1 trillion for the region.
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).
- How can countries ensure that digital authentication mechanisms—which often require smartphones, computers and internet access—are accessible to marginalized and vulnerable populations to facilitate remote access to services and benefits?
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.
- Growth: An individual or organization with an established product, service or model rolled out, which is poised for further growth in multiple locations.
- A new technology
In general, this problem is addressed with very technical and complex solutions, aimed at a public specialized in finance, or also with quite traditional solutions that do not have a significant impact on society.
*Traditional solutions: financial education workshops run by different agents and economic-financial entities.
*Digital solutions: such as educational Bloomberg, Piggy Agent, Economatic, Goonder, etc.
Alfi provides real information and updated content; It also has a profiling and evolution algorithm that learns from the tastes and preferences of each user, this helps to create an attractive gaming environment for each of them.
Through web scraping, financial information is collected from reliable sources (Bloomberg, Investing and other prestigious sources of information), this information is filtered and transformed into a playful and gamified language and then distributed to users, considering their respective equipment and consumer-investor profile; providing them access to real and personalized information according to their tastes and preferences.
We educate people through a platform based on financial education for free, personalized, fun and accessible, under OECD metrics. We reduce their level of ignorance and distrust of the financial system, in this way, they learn from their mistakes by avoiding committing them in the real financial world by reducing their delinquency and debt rates, obtaining greater sources of income and raising their quality of life.
To date, we have had an impact on more than 150,000 users, of whom 15% are young people from schools between 14 and 17 years old, 15% are young people from 18 to 24 years old, 43% are adults between 25 and 34 years. , 20% between 35-44 years and 7% between 45-54 years.
We have also partnered with multilateral organizations to reach people in rural community areas who are currently using Alfi to learn and connect with their first financial product, assisted by 70 financial education managers.
Of all users, 40% are women and 60% are men.
We have managed to financially literate our users according to the OECD and GFLEC metrics.
Tutorial:
- Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
- Behavioral Technology
- Software and Mobile Applications
We are still in time to provide families with the necessary weapons to face the difficult situation that is coming, and it is the duty of all global, governmental and financial actors to provide literacy, education and financial inclusion and join outreach efforts to reach the more people. Economic-financial dissemination efforts like Alfi's. We believe that we can see a better future together.
Financial education has a significant social impact on inclusion and literacy, which is gradually recognized as a fundamental condition of development, impacting on poverty reduction, by reducing vulnerability, mitigating the negative impact by reducing the volatility of cash flows of people, boost productivity, sales and job creation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), an increase in users in formal trade, promoting economic activity, contribute to reducing the risk of exclusion among more disadvantaged segments and opening a gap to consumer sovereignty regardless of their social conditions. At the macroeconomic level, greater access to financial services positively affects the reduction of inequality, having access to useful and affordable financial products according to their previously acquired profiles and knowledge, providing them with the necessary tools to manage their resources more efficiently. with a digital financial product, its basic dimensions being the access, use, and quality of each of them.
Our implementation is immediate, since we already have a country presence, we propose an impact escalation scenario throughout the year 2020. We have currently partnered with multilateral organizations to reach people in rural community areas who are currently using Alfi to learn and tackle their first financial product, with the assistance of 70 financial education managers. What gives us the experience of transforming the solution is the marginalized areas.
Our solution is completely digital, we use cloud software and native applications, making it scalable and replicable on a large scale in no time. Our artificial neural network (AI) is fed and learned by having a greater number of users, to create different and more specific profiles. This allows the implementation to be immediate.
The platform is completely digital, we use cloud software and native applications, making it scalable and replicable on a large scale in no time. Our artificial neural network (AI) is fed and learned by having a greater number of users, to create different and more specific profiles. Backend in PHP programming language, web server in laravel Framework, database made in MySQL. The web application is based on the React framework. The web server for the application uses NGINX. The android and ios application is based on the React-Native framework to reuse code between both platforms. AWS web services are used for deployment: The backend has an EC2 instance available and the database is deployed on top of the RDS service. Deployment: IaaS (from Amazon to us) SaaS (from us to customers)
Our platform is based on the use of technology, both online and offline (with the use of raspberry) that we recently implemented for specific cases in each country.
- Women & Girls
- Pregnant Women
- LGBTQ+
- Informal Sector Workers
- Migrant Workers
- Infants
- Children & Adolescents
- Elderly
- Rural Settings
- Low/No Connectivity Settings
- Peri-Urban
- Urban
- Poor
- Low-Income
- Middle-Income
- Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
- Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations
- Stateless Persons
- Nomadic Populations and Pastoralists
- Persons with Disabilities
- Chile
- Mexico
- Peru
- Colombia
- Puerto Rico
Active users: 150,000
Month to month recurrence: 55>#/b###
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
Achieve an increase in the number of users by 200%, position the brand globally, Implement marketing campaigns for each market with the greatest impact, the probability of success, the percentage of recurrence, the derivation of leads and the percentage of acquisition of products so that in the end they have greater impact results than expected and that millions of people see themselves as beneficiaries to improve their quality of life.
S2-2020
- Relaunch of application on iOS.
- Aggressive marketing campaign
- Automation of sale of packages for universities.
- Open market in the USA
S1-2021
- Incorporate the English language.
- Creation of holding company
- Systematization of lead acquisition and closure of educational institutions.
- Mandarin translation start
S2-2021
- Inclusion of Portuguese, Mandarin and French language pack.
- Enter the European and Asian market.
Future risks are the possible mistrust of users when purchasing a financial product and probable changes or restrictions in regulatory compliance (depending on the country). Another aspect is also, if the government does not force institutions to ensure the financial education of its users, this would make institutions not invest in platforms so that their users do not learn more about financial mechanisms.
Therefore we have different types of relationships with our clients and end users:
Personal assistance: Customers can contact a real commercial agent (a real person) to help them during the purchase process and strategic and operational implementation.
Communities: We use customer communities to get more involved with them and facilitate connections.
Co-creation: We engage with clients to create value, solve their problems and constant support.
It is worth mentioning that we carry out technical and preparation analyzes to measure and guarantee the viability of the project, with this, we minimize risk and strengthen our future projections focused on the strategic objective.
- For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Does not apply.
CEO-Victor Morales
Banking business-Carlos Vargas
CMO-Marcela Bazan
CTO -Eduardo Peredo
FrontEnd - Alexander Medina
COO-Rodrigo Arias
UX and Content-Josue Salas
CM Peru - Luis Guerrero
CM Mexico - Andrea Segura
*All full time.
CEO-Victor, Bachelor of Administration and Finance with more than 7 years of BVL investment experience
Banking business-Carlos, Commercial Engineer, MBA Corporate Finance and Economic Evaluation with more than 25 years of banking experience
CMO-Marcela, Bachelor of Administration and Marketing, with more than 4 years of experience in digital marketing at Falabella
CTO -Eduardo, UI Frontend programming, functional programming and application development with more than 6 years of experience
FrontEnd - Alexander, Software Engineer with more than 5 years of experience as a senior software developer.
COO-Rodrigo, Bachelor of Administration, with more than 8 years of experience in operations
UX and Content-Josue Salas, Psychologist specialized in the social and organizational area.
CM Peru - Luis, Bachelor of Business Administration with more than 5 years of experience in digital project management.
CM Mexico - Andrea, Business Management and Direction with more than 5 years in financial project management
The team has 10 members (including founders) of different nationalities; Peruvians, Mexicans and Chileans. It is currently divided into 4 areas. The commercial part, in charge of national and international 1 to 1 presentations, the generation of business and international alliances; the operations area, in charge of the general administration of the business, including the human and accounting part; the marketing and design area, in charge of graphic and web design to UX and UI related, social media management, and CRM; and the technological area in charge of developing the platform, hosting the product in the cloud, database management and analytics.
We work with different organizations, specially with financial and education partners, for example, we work with Universidad Ricardo Palma, a private university who required our platform to improve their methodology in different subjects that they dictate, more than everything related to business, also, they use our platform to teach specific themes of each subject, so that it helps teachers to develop their courses in a more friendly way. We also work with partners specialized with financial themes, for example, with Etoro, an investment platform on the stock exchange, we work with them to facilitate contact between them and their future clients since from our platform we can guide the most interested users to the investment platform.
Our business model is B2B2C & B2G, we charge financial institutions a commission for each placement (sale) or lead (derivation of customer request) depending on the financial product.
We charge financial institutions for lead generation and / or acquisition of financial products and for investment products, between USD $ 25 to USD $ 100; per activation, plus 30% to 40% commission for TRANSACTION of the fund (for the useful life of the fund).
Customers:
• Financial and banking institutions, national and international (present in Latin America).
• Associations or organizations with an interest in offering innovative and scalable financial education.
*** Free for all end users.
- Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)
Alfi charges financial institutions a commission for each placement (sale) or lead (derivation of customer request) depending on the financial product. In the scale of payments that we define in the banking market:
** Products for NATURAL PERSONS: Savings Account: USD 3 standard per lead (derivation of information / customer request) Credits: 1% to 5% of the total placed according to amount scales.
** Products for SMEs: Business Accounts: USD 5 standard per lead (derivation of information / customer request), POS: USD 7 standard per lead, Credits: 1% to 5% of the total placed according to amount scales.
ALFI services are offered from its native mobile App and from its website. ALFI leverages, from its business proposal, with corporate clients who offer their financial products enhanced by our value proposition. As an example for this validation process, we will have a universe of two million BBVA bank users to work with (offering new financial products) and a recruitment of one million new users captured through its digital channels.
Additionally, we leverage from actors such as governments, NGOs and multilateral organizations that, through alliances motivated by our main value, which is to provide free financial inclusion and education, allowing us to reach people excluded from the financial system and who have little access to quality education services. With this strategy we ensure that large populations can have adequate access to education services and include them in the financial system.
Liquid Venture Studio, USD 50,000 (equity free)
Startup Chile, USD 60,000 (equity free)
StartupBootcamp, USD 40,000 (equity)
• Monthly income: US$ 8,000
• Profit margin: 45>#/b###
• Monthly expenses: US$ 7,000
• CAC: US $50
• Live time Value: US $190
We seek to raise $ 300,000 for 7% equity, to consolidate our presence in Chile, Peru, Mexico and open Colombia.
The main operational costs are
A) Staff in charge of each ALFI area
B) The platform and all the components to make it work and stay up to date (USD 10,000)
C) Office expenses. (USD 1000)
We want to and would love to be a part of the deposit motivated by the fact that we are solving because it motivates us by increasing financial literacy. 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 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.
- Product/service distribution
- Marketing, media, and exposure
Our business model is B2B2C and B2G, we charge financial institutions a commission for each placement (sale) or lead (derivation of customer request) location of the financial product.
For the end user, we educate financially, obtain greater sources of income and raise your quality of life (financial health), ensuring that the learning experience is fun, dynamic and in community.
For clients, we offer financial-banking institutions a digital channel for the placement of their products, in addition to providing the necessary information to create different and better financial products.
In the face of governments, multilateral organizations, and NGOs, we provide indicators of inclusion and financial education directly related to the global objectives of inequality graphed by the GINI indicator.
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.
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