COOPERATIVA ACREIMEX

Cooperativa Acreimex is a financial cooperative with a mission to support micro, small and medium enterprises to promote economic and social improvements and welfares of its members in regions in and around Oaxaca, Mexico. As one of the four OPTIX institutions, Acreimex would like to serve its clients more efficiently via cross-sell savings to payroll clients, cross-sell to group loan clients and define its debit card value proposition.

INSTITUTION Profile

Institution type: Financial Cooperative

Year founded: 2001

Country: Mexico

City: Oaxaca

Client type: Rural & Lower Income

Website: http://www.acreimex.mx/

OPTIX PATHWAYS

Cross-sell Flexible Savings to Payroll Loans Clients: Acreimex introduced a commitment saving strategy through direct deposit for Acreinomina clients through their employer agreements so they could save in their AhorraMas y Mas flexible savings accounts. Beginning in April 2016, BFA and Acreimex conducted a 12-month pilot with 15 partner employers already offering Acreinómina loans to their employees. Additionally, BFA conducted qualitative phone interviews with 47 employees during months 8-10 of the pilot to gauge their satisfaction with the savings product. Pilot participants selected a predetermined savings amount ($5 to $28 USD) to be directly debited from their payroll at the same time as their Acreinómina loan payment with no withdrawal penalties at any time.

Loan Origination App: BFA first supported Acreimex in assessing the business case to sell to different client segments. BFA conducted two workshops to explain how to build and use a business case model to test product terms, find profitable options etc. Acreimex revisited the credit approval process to determine whether efficiency gains exist and updated processes accordingly. More recently, Acreimex identified another opportunity to improve processes to cross-sell Grupal: develop a loan origination application via mobile. BFA has designed the wireframes for the app from scratch, with a user-centric methodology to involve the loan officers and working with developers to bring the app to life.

Behavioral Interventions to Increase Savings: BFA conducted a workshop with Acreimex Savings department to introduce the staff to principles of behavioral economics and how they can be used for product design and marketing to help clients save. BFA performed a data segmentation analysis of the Ahorra Mas y Mas client base to identify savers that exhibit certain types of savings behaviors/habits and build behaviorally-based incentive approaches to encourage higher savings. Based on the analysis, BFA created two personas that exhibit desired behaviors (Accretive savers and balance sustainers) and selected branches where to conduct qualitative interviews and better grasp the savings habits and preferred communication tools.

Loan Consolidation Product for Indebted Clients: PAR had also increased across Acreimex. In order to support repeat clients who were non-performing on their second or later loan cycles and be able to accept over-indebted clients, Acreimex will develop a loan consolidation offering for such clients. BFA analyzed data from a sample of clients based on their credit bureau reports and determined most clients have 2-3 loans in addition to Acreimex’s, so there is a big opportunity to offer to consolidate their debts at a lower interest rate. BFA developed a credit simulator product for clients to show them how much they would gain from the consolidated debt and is now designing the most appropriate product terms with Acreimex.

Alternative Scoring For Rejected Clients: Acreimex had an incredibly high rate of rejection for new clients due to poor credit bureau scores. Acreimex launched a partnership with Destacame, an alternative credit scoring startup analyzing utility bill payments and other data points to assess the financial health of customers and help them consolidate their debts. Acreimex is piloting this alternative assessment methodology for rejected clients, currently with 2,000 customers second-loan clients.

Develop a Business Model Dashboard: BFA helped develop a Business Modeling Web Tool that enables Acreimex to visualize their product profitability and impact of cross-sell strategies in real time. BFA trained 15 staff and the tool is being rolled out institution's-wide in 2018. Acreimex will monitor staff usage and the utility of the tool for the institution’s strategic data driven decision-making.