Design Engineering
Showcase 2020

How can FinTechs develop competitive advantage, specifically in developing markets?

Academia indicates that traditional sources of competitive advantage are not effective in hyper-competition. Instead, corporate social responsibility could allow for customer and employee loyalty, together with ecosystem cooperation strategies.

A market case study in Mexico, a developing FinTech market, establishes the existence of an ecosystem lifecycle, with CSR and customer loyalty strategies showing first successes locally and regionally. Collected user insights demonstrate that users are looking for a new client-bank relationship: parental loyalty. With the blueprint Your Bank, Your Parent, an acquisition strategy, new products and parental loyalty lead to competitive advantage. Both emotional and functional characteristics of a new bank identity are proposed. Blueprint success is measured by trialist and loyalty growth. Project effectiveness is measured through user satisfaction and strategy feasibility.

The project impacts developing markets by fostering financial inclusion and is relevant for parallel markets and industries. It will increase awareness of design ethics and CSR strategy opportunities.