Informed Consumers Improve Financial Service Utilization

Arifu Insights

Informed Consumers Improve Financial
Service Utilization

About Arifu Insights:

Arifu is a digital advisor whose training content can be accessed freely on SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram and Facebook Messenger. Arifu’s mission is to provide information and opportunities for all. Arifu Insights intends to inform our partners and the wider ecosystem of digital information providers about what we know to drive this mission together.

This edition of Arifu Insights highlights:

This edition of Arifu Insights showcases our commercial value proposition for the financial services sector. The cases presented here will show how knowledge generation for consumers at a mass scale creates financial returns for financial service providers. Importantly, these cases also show how this commercial value ties back to impact on consumers through informed decision making and improved financial behaviour. In effect, this brief makes the case for why financial institutions should invest in digital consumer education programs.

Arifu's Impact

Below are some of the results we have observed across projects highlighting a strong demand for knowledge through Arifu’s platform , impact on Learners of Arifu, and commercial returns experienced by partners.

The outcome measures given below provide a snapshot of the full database of results available at Arifu. To learn more visit our Impact Dashboard and Key Insights documents that showcase our results in more depth.

Demand For Arifu: : 65% Net Promoter Score average over 5 years and 78% in 2020, with three individuals on average looking at Arifu content within a household
Value For Learners: 185% Increase in savings among women and a 19% increase in monthly profits for small businesses.
Value for Partners: 21% Increase in net borrowing among merchants and a 38% reduction in dormant accounts.

Arifu’s Commercial Value Proposition

With 72% of our Learners living off of <$5.5 per day carrying underserved demand for knowledge and skills, we see a significant commercial value proposition for firms looking to increase their customer segment reach.

Enhancing Loan Portfolio: At a cost of $2-$5 per year per Learner, we have observed a causal increase in borrowing of $45 over the same period. This was paired with higher repayment rates (10%) and repayment values (24%). That is the equivalent of a 15X increase in working capital relative to investment.
Improved Savings: Engagement with Arifu has also shown to increase both the Arifu Learners’ savings value and the frequency of savings in several case studies. In a case study in partnership with Vodacom M-Pawa, Arifu Learners increased their savings value 8X while the saving frequency increased 4X.
Predictive Analytics: Learning on Arifu is associated with higher incomes. This showcases the potential of Arifu’s engagement data as a viable predictor or add-on to existing data sources for creditscoring. Learning on Arifu is measured as associated with $84 higher revenues for farmers.