How Can Financial Institutions Engage and Retain their Customers?

OPTIX is an initiative co-designed by global consulting firm BFA and MetLife Foundation, and fiscally sponsored by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. It aims to help financial institutions better understand the lives and needs of low-income customers and ensure they have the same opportunities to access financial products and services as people on higher incomes. Financial institutions worldwide are striving to tailor solutions that both meet the demands of low-income households and also make good business sense.

OPTIX launched in 2015 with the aim of helping four socially-driven microfinance institutions and cooperatives in Mexico, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Colombia better understand the lives of low-income customers and create portfolios of appropriate financial products to improve their financial health.

For customers, the result is greater financial security and more options to efficiently manage their financial lives and grow their incomes. For financial institutions, it means customers will stay with them longer as they benefit from multiple products and build a trusted relationship with them.
 
The OPTIX approach is based on a thorough understanding of the needs of low-income customers through a combination of data analytics, market research, behavioral science as well as deep knowledge of low-income demographics that together lead to more relevant and cost-effective financial products.

 

Recent Articles

Videos

OPTIX (Optimizing Performance via Improved Cross-Sell) is a project funded by MetLife Foundation and managed by BFA. BFA has worked with Acreimex, a cooperative in the Mexican region of Oaxaca, to leverage automation in product design to improve customer engagement and to cross-sell savings accounts to loan clients.

Stealthy Savings at Acreimex: Building on Payroll to Credit Automate Savings in Mexico

OPTIX (Optimizing Performance via Improved Cross-Sell) is a project funded by MetLife Foundation and managed by BFA. BFA has been working with CEP on a number of pathways, including improving their marketing and communication strategies to better engage customers. This video tells CEP's story and the tools they use to ideate and prototype innovative messaging strategies.

How CEP Microfinance is Reaching the Poorest in Vietnam with Human-Centered Marketing

The SAJIDA Foundation Shojon loans enables account holders to take out loans and repay them using the bKash mobile money accounts.

The SAJIDA Foundation's Shojon Loan via BKash Mobile Money Accounts

Watch this video to see how technology is accelerating financial inclusion in Bangladesh. MetLife Foundation's partner BFA is doing ground-breaking work to embed the right technology and technical capabilities in local nonprofit organizations on the ground like Sajida, working with women entreprenuers to help them navigate life's challenges and opportunities.

How SAJIDA Foundation is Spurring Small Businesses in Bangladesh with Mobile Loans

The OPTIX Partners

 

The Four OPTIX Institutions