Finful

Our team's primary focus lies in addressing the pervasive issue of insufficient financial literacy within the Generation Z population, not only in Vietnam but also across the ASEAN region.

1. Insufficient Financial Knowledge and Skills

In Vietnam, a staggering number of individuals, approximately 6.1 million, lack the necessary financial literacy competencies. This disconcerting statistic underscores the pressing need to enhance financial education. Among Generation Z, the average score on financial literacy assessments stands at a mere 5.1 out of 12, as documented by Yen (2020).

2.Implications for National Advancement

The significance of financial literacy extends beyond individual circumstances and has profound socio-economic implications for a nation. Extensive research, such as the S&P Global FinLit Survey of 2014, elucidates the intimate correlation between a country's level of financial literacy and its overall developmental progress. Evidently, highly developed nations like Canada, the United States, and Australia exhibit commendably high levels of financial literacy. Conversely, developing countries, including Vietnam, encounter substantial challenges in this regard, hindering their economic advancement.

3. Safeguarding Against Financial Fraud

Acquiring a solid foundation in financial literacy serves as an essential defense mechanism against the escalating prevalence of financial fraud. This form of criminal activity has become increasingly commonplace and poses significant risks to unsuspecting individuals. Comprehensive knowledge and understanding of financial concepts and practices, as highlighted by Investopedia (2022), empower individuals to shield themselves from falling victim to fraudulent schemes and manipulative tactics.

Finful aspires to provide Vietnamese youth with a comprehensive understanding of finance by employing a gamified learning approach and a learn-to-earn model, thus making financial knowledge more accessible and appealing to young customers. Our designed finance curriculum comprises various down-to-earth fields such as investment, saving, borrowing, spending, and earning. Each module is further subdivided into bite-sized lessons, facilitating a systematic acquisition of financial knowledge.

• About gamification model: Finful draws inspiration from successful language learning platforms like Duolingo. This approach incorporates engaging elements to make the learning experience interactive and enjoyable, ensuring that financial education resonates effectively with the target audience.

• About learn-to-earn model: Finful set up partnerships with banks, financial institutes (such as insurance and securities firms), and potential partners from diverse sectors like education and e-commerce. These partnerships enable Finful to offer users access to valuable financial products and services, and in turn, users can earn monetary rewards and gifts while using the app, fostering a learn-to-earn framework. Finful, as the platform provider, benefits from referral fees generated through these partnerships.

Finful's mission

Our mission is to innovate financial education for Gen Z and optimize the bank's customer acquisition process (*). As 1 of 4 pillars of national financial inclusion, financial education will create sustainable economic growth, universal access to financial services and reduced income inequalities.

(*) According to goal 8.10 (SDG 8 - Economic Growth) issued by the United Nations, vision to 2030: Strengthen the capacity of domestic financial institutions to encourage and expand access to banking services , insurance and finance for everyone.

Finful’s vision

 becoming the foremost financial education platform for Generation Z in Vietnam by 2027. By equipping young individuals with essential financial knowledge, Finful aims to facilitate their journey towards wealth accumulation and financial independence.

Our team targets to address the specific financial challenges and needs of anyone who has financial difficulties, especially the 18-22 age group within Generation Z as they encounter the most significant "pain points" in this regard. Additionally, we consider the age group of 23-26 as a secondary priority due to the following reasons:

• Financial Stability and Income Growth: Individuals within the 23-26 age range have a strong concern for financial matters, primarily focusing on the objective of attaining stability and increasing their income. 

• Market Expansion and Millennial Engagement: Considering the shared characteristics and personalities between the 23-26 age group and the GenY, targeting this cohort serves as a strategic premise for future market expansion. 

The detailed information regarding 2 groups is listed out below:

18-22

23-26

Background

Mostly students (college, university, etc.) & workers. This group has limited income from part-time jobs and more allowance from parents or related source

Students, fresh graduates, white collar, blue collar workers, etc. Has more stable/predictable income from jobs, less-non rely on parent allowance

Financial Management Behaviors

Majority students (592 people) answered that they were financially dependent on their families, only a minority (10%) can be independent and financially self-sufficient during their studies.

Main expenses are for basic necessities such as rent, food/drink (majority), utilities, transportation. Other expenses are for clothing, entertainment purposes

Starting to learn about investing and do not limit to any backgrounds

Students nowadays try to get themselves jobs that would partly pay for their tuition and apartments. 

Social media has a strong impact on this age group spending habits, especially on  hyper-personalized products.

They are willing to spend a big chunk of their budgets on eating out

Partly independence in financial management as the change in their roles in the family, which they have to share/ pay for the bills.

Main expenses are like the beside group, but this age group are more well-aware of their financial management habits.

Social media has a strong impact on this age group spending habits. Enjoys online shopping but is careful when making purchase decisions. 

Tend to spend money on hyper-personalized products.

Willing to spend a big chunk of their budgets on eating out

Have bigger saving plans for housing, transportation, and other future goals.

This age group also need to spend more money and have more responsibilities so they are more careful with purchase decisions

18-25 has the highest frequency of increasing income

Issues

Low or limited income but high demand for spending

Often find themselves living paycheck to paycheck

Lack of knowledge about investing, can be easily target by defrauders

- High depression percentage due to income struggle, mental wellness

- People between 18 and 24 change jobs an average of 5.7 times. (higher than other groups)

- Have insufficient knowledge on saving and investing (Vietnam is always in the Top 5 countries with a high level of optimism about the economic outlook, in the third quarter of 2017 it was ranked 5th globally.)

--> long-term financial consequences in the future

Our team members are mostly in Generation Z, notably the 18 to 22 age group. We are fully aware of those issues:

1. How financial problems affect our personal (and even familial) lives.

2. How important financial literacy is.

3. But most significantly, how difficult it is to acquire financial literacy due to a lack of support and available high-quality resources in our community. 

No

Full name

University/Company

Position

Full-time/

Part-time

1

Nguyễn Lưu Anh Tuấn

Computer Science - VinUniversity

CEO

Full-time

2

Nguyễn Mai Phương

Business Administration - VinUniversity

Head of Business Operations

Part-time

3

Đào Đức Thắng

Account Manager - ACY Capital

Head of Growth

Part-time

4

Nguyễn Hương Giang

Investment Banking - Stavian Group

Head of Financial Knowledge

Part-time

5

Nguyễn Khánh Chi

Business Administration - VinUniversity

Partnership (Marketing)

Part-time

6

Nguyen Ngọc Minh Hưng

Hanoi Law University

Partnership 

Part-time

7

Hoang Nguyen Gia Huy

VinUniversity

Partnership

Part-time

Currently, we have served 100 users (through our MVP). This year, the people we serve will be divided into 2 groups: people using app and people we reach out through marketing campaigns (including on and off line formats). Regarding the first group, we have a target to achieve 10000 users this year, and 30000 people coming from our marketing campaigns, specifically 10000 from offline activities (by partnering with 5 high schools, and 5 universities in Hanoi city) and 20000 through online financial content on Tiktok, Facebook. 

Finful is applying to MIT Solve for several compelling reasons that align with our mission and goals. By participating in Solve, we seek to leverage the platform's resources and networks to overcome specific barriers and propel our solution forward. Our intention is not solely focused on raising funds but rather to access a comprehensive ecosystem of support that can significantly enhance our solution's impact. 

1. Financial Barriers: One key barrier we face is securing the necessary financial resources to further develop and scale our financial education platform. We believe that Solve's networks with potential funding, strategic partners can provide us with access to crucial monetary support and collabration, allowing us to strengthen and expand our offerings. Furthermore, Solve's non-monetary support, such as mentorship and strategic guidance, can prove invaluable in refining our financial sustainability model and optimizing our impact. 

2. Technical Challenges: As a technology-driven platform, we encounter technical hurdles that require expertise and collaboration. By participating in Solve, we aim to access technical resources and expert guidance that can help us navigate these challenges. Engaging with Solve's network of technology partners and mentors can enable us to enhance the user experience, implement advanced data analytics, and optimize the gamified learning approach within our platform. 

3. Legal Considerations: Navigating legal and regulatory frameworks, particularly in the financial industry, can present complexities and challenges. Therefore, we hope to have connections with legal experts who can assist us in understanding and complying with relevant regulations, ensuring that our financial education platform operates within the appropriate legal boundaries. This guidance will enable us to build trust with our users, partners, and stakeholders. 

4. Connections to other talented teams: Solve's diverse community and global reach can provide us with insights and connections to exceptional teams for us to gain feedback, insights from various perspectives. 

Finful was developed in response to the prevalent issue of financial illiteracy among Vietnamese GenZ, which exposes them to significant financial risks such as financial scam, limited wealth opportunities and so on. This innovative financial education solution employs gamification as an approach to learning finance which is engaging and feasible for young customers, distinguishing our solutions from traditional methods that are often dull, unengaging, and challenging to comprehend. By creating an immersive, game-like experience that delivers financial concepts in a dynamic and interactive way, Finful can effectively capture and retain the interest of GenZ learners. Additionally, Finful can reward users for their learning with real money, vouchers and other monetary values from our partners, which are banks, insurance companies and other financial institutes by solving their problems of acquiring financially literate customers. Finful’s users could be highly potential customers for our partners’ services as they are fundamentally equipped with sufficient financial knowledge, thus, urging them to use more services to increase their wealth growth and financial well-being. 

We believe that Finful's innovative approach has the potential to create far-reaching positive impacts within financial education in multi-dimensional aspects. Firstly, its success in effectively engaging and educating young customers through gamification may serve as a catalyst for other financial education providers to adopt similar approaches. This could result in the emergence of a broader array of engaging and interactive financial education tools and resources for young people, ultimately leading to improved financial literacy levels on a wider scale. Secondly, through our partnerships with banks, insurance companies, and other financial institutions, Finful could acquire them with financially literate customers, which can be the potential customers of more financial services, helping them to grow their wealth and becoming financially independent. Finful could also inspire these institutions to invest more in financial education initiatives, leading to a greater focus on financial education and awareness-raising among these institutions' customer bases, which could ultimately improve overall financial literacy levels and rocket the economy. Finally, Finful's utilization of rewards and incentives to encourage users to continue learning and utilizing financial services could inspire other providers to adopt similar strategies. This could result in an increased emphasis on incentivizing learning, which could help learners to adopt financial knowledge effectively while gaining real rewards.

In terms of market impact, Finful's innovative approach has the potential to disrupt the traditional model of financial education, which has long been criticized for its lack of engagement. By providing a dynamic and interactive learning experience, Finful may attract a wider audience to financial education, particularly among younger generations. This could create a new market for financial education providers, requiring them to adopt more engaging approaches to remain competitive. Moreover, Finful's partnerships with financial institutions may offer new opportunities for these institutions to reach and engage with more financially literate and engaged customers. This could result in a shift towards more customer-centric financial services, with a greater emphasis on education and financial literacy.

We recently launched our Beta app to the market and we planned to acquire 10.000 users by the end of 2024 with 2-3% conversion rate. It means that 10.000 Gen Z will achieve financial literacy (from basic levels) and approximately 2-300 users will use financial service from financial institutions and banks that helps them manage money better. 

Besides, we also execute public and social media marketing campaigns to reach out to the community. Firstly, we will partner with and visit high schools and universities in Hanoi to organize programs that not only help students know for Finful but understand the importance of financial literacy and how it impacts on their entire lives. We focus on high schools for gifted students and prestigious universities (our early target is 5 schools and 5 universities). Secondly, through social media marketing strategies, we create and develop financial education content through Tiktok and Facebook that helps the community, especially Gen Z, understand basic concept, knowledge about financial literacy.

Furthermore, we target to collaborate with 30 partners covering a wide range of industries such as education, financial institutions, e-commerce to offer users products, services regarding your demands that improves their lives in different ways. 

To measure its progress, Finful considers tracking various indicators that are aligned with our impact goals. One such indicator is financial literacy rates, which can be assessed by measuring the percentage of users who demonstrate an increase or improvement in financial knowledge after using our product. This can be evaluated through pre- and post-testing or user surveys that assess knowledge gain. By tracking financial literacy rates, Finful can determine the effectiveness of its approach and identify areas that require improvement.

Another indicator that we will track is the formation of financial habits by tracking the number of users who have started saving money, investing in stocks or other financial assets, and/or starting their own businesses as a result of using the platform through data from our own or from partners. This could also be done through surveys or other user feedback mechanisms. From that data, Finful can demonstrate the real-world impact of our solution and our role in promoting financial literacy and independence.

User engagement is a crucial factor for measuring the efficacy of Finful's financial education solution. This can be evaluated using a variety of metrics, including the amount of time users spend on the platform, completion rates for individual modules or courses, and user satisfaction ratings. By assessing theses, Finful can identify areas that require improvement and fine-tune its approach to better meet the needs and expectations of its users. Through a continuous assessment of user engagement, Finful can ensure that its financial education solution remains relevant and effective, ultimately contributing to a higher level of financial literacy among Gen Z learners in Vietnam.

The theory of change for Finful's financial education solution:

Immediate Outputs:

• Develop a comprehensive financial education platform with high-quality content and superb user experience.

• Utilize gamification to make learning finance more engaging and interactive for Gen Z.

• Ensure that the platform is accessible to a diverse range of users, including those from low-income backgrounds.

Intermediate Outcomes:

• Increase financial literacy rates among Gen Z learners in Vietnam.

• Encourage users to start forming financial habits such as saving, investing, managing expenses, borrowing money.

• Improve access and learning experiences to financial education for learners from all backgrounds.

Long-Term Outcomes:

• Contribute to sustainable economic development in Vietnam.

• Reduce income inequality by providing individuals with the knowledge and abilities to make informed financial decisions and achieve financial independence.

• We expect our financial education solution to have an impact on the problem of financial illiteracy among Vietnamese Gen Z by utilizing a novel approach to financial education that is more engaging and interactive. By providing high-quality content, innovative , Finful aims to increase financial literacy rates among Gen Z learners, and encourage them to take control of their financial futures. Additionally, by improving access to financial education for traditionally underserved populations, Finful aims to contribute to sustainable economic development and reduce income inequality in Vietnam.

This theory of change is supported by the logical links between Finful's activities, outputs, and outcomes, as well as third-party research and data from interviews with the target population. By continuing to refine its approach and measure its progress towards achieving its impact goals, Finful can ensure that its financial education solution remains effective and relevant for its users.

Finful’s current solution is largely based on Software and Mobile Application in which the core function of our solution is gamification that utilizes interactive game-like experiences to make learning finance more engaging and interesting for Gen Z learners. This technology leverages elements such as challenges, rewards, competition, and feedback to motivate learners and reinforce their learning progress. By using gamification, Finful seeks to make financial education more accessible and effective for younger learners, who may be less inclined to engage with traditional financial education materials. While gamification is not a new technology, it has gained popularity in recent years as a means of increasing engagement and motivation in a variety of contexts, including education, health, and business. Finful's use of gamification to improve financial literacy rates among Gen Z learners in Vietnam demonstrates how innovative technology can be used to address critical societal challenges and improve people's lives.