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Think Different – Gamify your Mobile Money in Egypt
Marietta:
Welcome to Velti’s webinar, broadcasted from The Netherlands, Greece and Egypt! We are here with our 7th webinar; everything you want to know about Mobile Money and how to Gamify it! I’m glad you’re all watching. So.. It might be soon a thing of the past… Who needs cash when you can easily pay with a Digital wallet? Right?
Oh, no! Where is my phone? You know how it feels! We carry our mobile phones with us, everywhere. They predict that digital wallets are close to becoming, the most popular way to pay in person…. It’s Egypt’s new trend and it’s growing with incredible speed! In this Webinar you will learn more from Velti’s experiences in Gamifying Mobile Money in Egypt.
We have divided the webinar into 4 parts. First, I will tell you more about Velti and I will show you more insights, about Velti Egypt. Then we will tune in to Greece, where my colleague Yasmine Hakim, Director of Sales Egypt & North Africa, will share more insights on the Mobile Money key statistics in Egypt. It will be our pleasure to host directly from Egypt our guest, Hend El’ Araby, Head of Mobile Money at TELECOM Egypt. She will share her experience about Mobile Money and specifically about Telecom Egypt mobile cash product “WE PAY”. And finally, Yasmine will talk about Velti’s Gamification solution for Mobile money, Business Goals, Engagement Techniques and expected results.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to type them down below and we will come back to it during the Webinar and otherwise after the Webinar in writing. My name is: Mariëtta Robbé Groskamp, Business Development Director Europe And let’s dive in!
Let me start with a brief overview of our company. Velti was founded in the year 2000 and has more than 20 years of experience in the Mobile Marketing area. The main SOLUTIONS that we offer can be classified into: CVM, Marketing Automation, Gamification, Loyalty, Permission Marketing, WebApps. The Velti family is ever growing, currently we have 130 employees – 50% of which are software engineers ensuring that we are using the latest trends and technologies. The main offices of Velti are in Athens (where you also find the HQ and the development center), Dusseldorf and Dubai. We also have 5 additional sales offices, and EGYPT is one of them.
In the next slide you see an overview of Velti’s footprint which is something we are extremely proud of. Here is an overview of the main clients we are working with. More than 300 clients representing 70 countries, from Europe, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Clients such as Deutsche Telekom, Vodafone, Telecom Egypt to Etisalat and many more.
Before we talk to my colleague Yasmine from VELTI Egypt, let me share some more information about Velti Egypt, first. The Velti Egypt journey started in Egypt in 2010. Velti is one of the few companies that works with ALL 4 operators “Vodafone, Orange, Etisalat and Telecom Egypt”. We have been able to recruit around 46 million users to our services, with billing transactions of more than 327 Million, which has resulted in a total projects revenues of 239M EGP, around 13,5M euro. Until today, VELTI invested around 10 Million EGP, which is around 560K EURO in prizes, delivered to more than 16.000 winners. Some great achievement from our Velti team in Egypt!
According to Worldpay’s Global Payments Report, more than half of ALL e-commerce transactions made globally, are expected to be made with a digital wallet by 2023. So, Let’s learn more about this huge trend. And.. Yasmine knows everything about it! It’s time to tune in to the Velti office in Athens and talk to my colleague Yasmine!
Hi Yasmine, greetings from The Netherlands! Kai fahalek? How was your TRIP from Egypt to Athens?
Yasmine:
Hello Marietta, Kolo tamam! I am actually really happy to join you today from the Athens studio and be part of this webinar.
Marietta:
Thanks Yasmine! I’m doing fine. It’s great to have you here today, I look forward to hearing more about Electronic wallets. The floor is ALL yours!
Yasmine:
Thank you Marietta! Let’s get into the core of our webinar which is mobile money. Now, in Egypt, we are becoming more familiar about Mobile Money, cash wallet . I will give you an overview about Mobile Money including important key statistics. We will start with some basic definitions that cover all you need to know about Mobile money. Mobile Money is all about accessing financial services via your phone. It has been very successful in bringing un-banking users into the main stream and allowing them to pay for products and services. Also, mobile money transfer is a movement of a balance from a mobile wallet to another using a mobile phone. Therefore, you can transfer money at a low cost! The mobile money tool is the electronic wallet or as we call it e-wallet or cash wallet! The mobile money phenomenon has been leaded mostly by the telecom operators who allowed this technology to reach large Egyptian base unforgotten by the traditional banking system.
We can say that Mobile Money is where the technology and humanity meet to facilitate our lives. With Mobile Money you can: Deposit and withdraw money, pay your phone bill, recharge your phone balance , your home utilities “Water, Gas, and electricity” with no queue, send money to anyone, anywhere, donate for charity, simply pay by clicking a button.
Why has mobile money become so popular? The main factor is that anyone with a mobile phone can have a mobile money account with no actual bank account needed. All that’s required is providing some very basic information. Once this information is validated by the company, the user can start receiving, sending and spending money. So, it is secure & trusted by different sources… available anytime and anywhere…FAST, SIMPLE AND AFFORDABLE, as there are no monthly opening or deposit fees compared to banking transfer. Also, it is not only convenient for people living in cities, but also and, most importantly, it means coverage throughout the country especially in towns that didn’t have access to an ATM or to a bank branch. Now they can count on mobile account where they can cash in and cash out anytime.
Yasmine:
Another important point is that all transactions are roofed by NTRA, Operators, and protected by banks and Central bank of Egypt. In addition, a PIN is required for every single transaction, so it has the approval of the mobile money account holder. To cover this trend of Mobile Money in Egypt from all aspects, we need to know some key figures.
A report has been issued by The National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) on the indicators of mobile wallet usage in Egypt during the first half of 2021 -from January to June- as NTRA seeks to promote and raise awareness of e-payment methods. We have a total of 10.2 million Cash withdraw transactions VS 4.4 million in 2020.
As for the deposits, they were higher than 2020 by 109% and reached 13.8 million transactions. The service was also used by different age groups, the largest of which was the 26-45 group. According to the report, the total number of mobile wallets in Egypt reached 16.3 million.
The top three services using mobile wallets were:
1)money transfer,
2)cash deposit and withdrawal
3)only with balance recharge (mobile phone and Internet) we reached a total of 16.4 million transactions
35.2 million transfers transactions completed from one electronic wallet to another. According to the report, 81 million e-transactions were conducted through e-wallets Versus 29.5 in H1 2020. This is an increase of 175%, even though Mobile money is relatively new in the Egyptian market, however it shows a healthy grow as the technology continues to improve. New capabilities and features will be added such as gamification elements.
So we can say that mobile money is creating a better future !
Yasmine:
Now I will give the webinar over to my colleague Marietta who is going to interview Miss Hend Elaraby from Telecom Egypt. As always it’s also important to look at the service provider’s point of view.
Marietta:
Thank you Yasmine for these great insights! I will get back to you after the interview.
Marietta:
It’s time to talk, to our special guest: Hend El Araby. Hend has over 20 years of experience in the Telecom industry, with deep knowledge of the B2B & B2C sector. Delivering excellent Digital services to the end users of TELECOM Egypt, where she held several positions from Product Development, to Customer Loyalty & Retention and currently she is the Head of Mobile Money, already for 3 years. Hend holds a Master degree in Business Administration. And, if you think that’s enough, she is currently on her way to get her title as Doctor of Business Administration.
Definitely someone who we would like to learn more from and get her view on the future of Mobile Money. Hi Hend, thank you so much for being here with us today.
Mrs. Hend:
Hi Marietta thank you it’s my pleasure to be with you today.
Marietta:
Great Hend! Let me start with the first question:
1. What do you think is the future of the fintech services in Egypt precisely Mobile Money?
Apparently, finTech has recently become a promising industry in Egypt. In line with the country’s National Vision for 2030, The Egyptian government has issued new regulations to help the fintech sector to grow, & make the usage of fintech easier and more appealing to all people. Due to these continuous evolutions, people will become dependable on e-wallets in their daily transactions and we think that people will maximize their usage of digital payment technology and e-wallets in the future due to its convenience, speed, privacy and security.
2. Great that the Egyptian government is focusing on the Fintech evolution and supporting it. Do you think mobile money replace the cash?
With the rise of contactless payments, bank cards debit, credit or prepaid and mobile apps, cash will be soon a thing of the past. Mobile money will replace cash transactions gradually in the near future due to its advantages like
Making Fast transactions.
No more waiting in queue.
No need to carry pile of cash.
Convenient, Reliable and secure.
3. Perfect! So Hend, because you’re working at WE. Let’s dive in on your product WE pay (your cash wallet). What are your plans for WE PAY?
We are adopting an expansionary vision that aims to support digital payment services that witness a boom in performance nowadays. WE has short and long-term plans to develop electronic transactions, automate payments. WE intends to support the growth in the use of WE Pay during the last period through Increasing payments by availing more than 100 billers to the e-wallet. Also, We’re preparing to launch new services like NFC, interoperable AvL & in the near Future micro savings & Loans.
4. That are some great new initiatives! So what is your target segment?
Actually, we are targeting all WE mobile customers across all segments not only youth who are more familiar with technology & easy to adapt with. As we are always sharing in governmental initiatives that support financial inclusion like disbursing of irregular employment grants during Covid-19 pandemic, & will launch soon pension disbursements on WE Pay.
5. It seems that the pandemic has a positive outcome on WE PAY – that’s REALLY nice. However you definitely facing some challenges. Can you elaborate a bit more on the challenges?
One of the most important challenges we face is people culture who depend more on cash & consider it more trusted. Also, less digital awareness & difficulties in using technology are the main obstacles for a lot of people to use digital payments, unfortunately.
Marietta:
Thanks for your time and sharing your insights. Thank you Hend.
Mrs. Hend:
Thank you for having me here with you, it was a pleasure sharing with you all these insights. Have a great day.
Marietta:
We are already coming towards the last part of the Webinar! A very interesting part about: How VELTI can help the adoption of Mobile Money and FinTech in Egypt with our great Gamification solution.
Yasmine:
I believe Velti has the solution needed to answer all mobile money operator challenges.
Marietta:
I can’t wait to hear more Yasmine!
Yasmine:
Velti will take a deep dive into the future of mobile money, and how our gamification solution elements could yield positive results, in which revenue will be driven from giving value to users. Gamification is a unique way to manage money & add some fun.
Today we are going to talk about our gamification solution and how we could apply some of game mechanic principals to move money efficiently in a new type of fintech and new payment economy. Let’s first distinguish between Games and Gamification . Games exist to entertain. For example, by playing Fortnite game, I may receive some secondary benefits like improved some skills, but the only real function is entertainment. It’s fun! On the other hand, gamification exists to engage and motivate. Simply, gamification is the usage of game mechanics in non-game contexts.
Through our fully gamified program powered by Velti platform tailored to engage subscribers towards building a strong habit for using eWallet instead of other touch points.
Actually, this is a learner-centered mindset. In order for gamification to be successful, we must find the intersection between the user goals and the business goals. The key pillars needed to growth your fintech products are: It has to engage your users, reward them, user needs to achieve something, feel motivated, learn, and to be challenged. Velti Platform is an ecosystem, starting from the Operator’s addressable base to communicate with the users via different channel methods, to engage them through our gamification engine and finally to reward them. It’s all about our expertise.
Gamification can be useful in some contexts and in others not so much. It has to be designed carefully to make sure it suits your business goals. So, we usually start with the program business objectives:
1. Do you want to increase your app download
2. Improve your customer experience
3. Increase brand/product awareness
Do you want to know your customer more Or do you want to increase the app usage penetration ? Or finally would you like to increase your App rating? Our gamification solution can be a wonderful method to meet your business goal. After setting our goals we need to know the tactics… Here comes our extensive library of missions “main missions + bonus missions”. To guide your user: you could use video or text tutorial. To motivate them to use the app, you may use missions like send money or pay the bill now. To go viral, ask them to share on social media and if you would like to know your customer just use surveys.
When it comes to games we generally like different types of video games and this is exactly the same with gamification. Some of us prefer games with funny elements, some of us like brain competition others like exploring fantasy worlds, and others like surprise games. Some of us who don’t even like video games, would prefer the lucky element.
Therefore, one size doesn’t fit all and this is really important to consider when it comes to designing effective gamification you need to think about who your player is and what kind of games they like to play. That’s why we have an extensive library of games. Brain games to Educate customers on different products & services like find the patter or guess the word. Lucky game to Reward mechanisms, appeal to motivation like spin the wheel or drop the ball. Funny games to Increase engagement & returns to the program; collect behavioral data such us Odd object game or Movie quiz game. And, finally, and the most interesting part is the surprise games to mainly increase emotional connection between customer and brand. Shake your phone, daily bonus…
Marietta:
Wow, Yasmine, all these sound really interesting. Can you show us in detail one or two examples of the customer journey?
Yasmine:
Sure, let’s learn more about the user journey of a non e-wallet user. After defining the business objective which is “increasing the App downloads”, we will tailor our content to each segment “in this case we will target the non app users” starting from the communication method with personalized SMS, script, timing and language. So, here, for example, Karim will receive a greeting SMS with a define call to Action and clear reward in return.
Customer will visit the app store in order to download the app and logs in. “Login mission” drives customer to take a quick tour on app capabilities. Customer takes a quick tour on app capabilities to increase customer awareness about the ewallet. “Thank you message” and reward details. Upon accomplishing the mission customer gets entries for the monthly draw to engage him with the program
As conclusion, we have reached our main objective which is to increase the app download, in addition to secondary goals, “awareness + engagement”. Again we will start with the business objective: which is increase the usage penetration for app users but not active. Now the communication channel is different, we will use the in app notification Invite the user to { experience and win} campaign again with a clear call to action and exact reward. Upon Clicking on the push notification users is redirected to the reward and the needed Mission. The mission now is to send money. When the transaction is accomplished, Customer will be invited to play a game “guess the word”. Customer gets rewarded after guessing the word. We have again successfully reach our goal by reactivating this silent user and engaging her with a new Entertainment element which is the game.
The gamification rewards also is tailored per segment with an engagement mechanism of “Win every time… you recharge your phone credit or do a specific mission”
Or “save for a higher prize”. Prize could be daily or monthly, small prize or grand prize.
After going through all gamification elements we need to see the results on our business with velti’s gamification program. Increase by 16% monthly active users, increase in transaction by 32%, engagement up to 25%.
The nice thing about gamification is that because it deals with motivation it’s applicable to many different fields.
Marietta:
Yasmine, we would like to thank you for being here with us today.
Yasmine:
Thank you too Marietta.
Marietta:
Greetings to everyone in Athens. Have a nice day!
..and with this, our webinar already comes to an end:
As you can see, Mobile Money, Digital wallets is a huge trend, and not only in Egypt but also in Africa – it’s increasing RAPIDLY, driven by the ongoing wave of innovation and rising customer demand. I hope you enjoyed learning about the Mobile Money trend in Egypt, and hearing more from our experts in this topic, my colleague Yasmine as well as Hend from WE. For the latest news, more interesting webinars and blog posts please subscribe to our LinkedIn channel or YouTube, IG of FB, or visit our website at Velti.com. See you on our next webinar!
For now, have a great day and as we say in Arabic, Masalamah, good bye!