Scaling a Money Transfer Wallet into new Markets Through Customer Segmentation

Company Description

Leaf provides financial services to the stateless and excluded through a digital wallet, enabling users to safely send, store, and transport money across borders, and exchange currencies without carrying cash. Leaf is accessible on any mobile device — no smartphone required. With advanced customer segmentation, Leaf will be able to offer tailored services to meet the diverse needs of its user base.

Problem

No other financial service in the market is specifically designed for refugees and migrants, cross-border traders, and the financially excluded, making customer segmentation a crucial aspect for Leaf’s competitive differentiation. Existing products like banks, mobile money, and international remittance apps are often ineffective because they only offer either domestic services or point-to-point money transfer. Rarely do they offer both, especially in an inclusive and accessible way. Other digital wallets only serve the smartphone-enabled market and rely on in-house ledgers that could be manipulated. Leaf targeting these excluded customer segments is its competitive differentiation.

Solutions and Product Marketing Strategies Used Alongside Customer Segmentation

As a consulting Product Marketing Manager at Leaf Global Fintech, my key responsibilities were in helping the company to properly articulate their value propositions to their customer segments, connect customer and market insights to influence the go-to-market strategies and product roadmap, and eventually shape how the target customer segments thought about Leaf Wallet through effective customer segmentation. To achieve the above these are some of the top

Product Marketing Strategies I employed:

• Win/Loss Analysis
• Competitive Intelligence
• Value Propositioning testing
• Go To Market Planning and execution
• Customer segmentation
• Sales enablement
• Product Releases and launches according to launch tiers

Outcomes

• 15x growth in transactions from 2020, 10x increase in money processed and 4x increase in customer growth within the first year. This meant the company was getting closer to product market fit with high-value customers who love Leaf
• Featured by Denelle Dixon, CEO of the Stellar Development Foundation, in a US House Financial Services Committee hearing as a positive use case for blockchain and stablecoin regulation.
• Launched a new NFT art sales program for refugees in Rwanda to generate income
• Expanded to allow cash-in from the UK, enabling remittances into East Africa
• Designed a full product suite to meet customers’ evolving financial needs: Developed a new lending app, Leaf Loans, to provide small, blockchain-based loans to Leaf Wallet customers (currently in testing)
• Built a new product and registration process (not yet deployed) in which customers will enter Leaf through “Leaf Lite” by default. Lite is selfie-based and removes the need for identity document verification (a big hurdle for refugees). Customers who choose to upgrade to the full Wallet product will go through Leaf’s existing KYC process.
• Received World Changing Idea Award from Fast Company
• Listed on Inclusive Fintech 50 list sponsored by Visa – $220,000 award from the Stellar Community Fund – $100,000 grant award from UNICEF Innovation Blockchain Fund
• Received $25,000 grant from the Cisco Global Problem Solver Challenge

Let’s connect! on Twitter and LinkedIn or Send us a message