At 34, banker earns BRL 2.5 billion with low income – 06/24/2023 – Panel SA

Seven out of ten Brazilians don’t go somewhere because they feel “it’s not for them”. This feeling of not having enough money to go to a good restaurant or enter a luxury shopping center is the same one that prevents 45 million Brazilians from going to a bank, despite moving R$ 800 billion in the economy.

“It is this public that Will Bank goes after”, says founder Felipe Felix. At the age of 34, he says that his bank’s revenue should reach R$ 2.5 billion with a base of five million customers. All joined the banking system via credit card and today even make investments.

Banks prefer not to serve low-income customers, but you make a lot of money with this public. What’s the formula? For them it is not worth it because this client spends little, BRL 800 per month in our case. The operating cost structure does not allow a bank to [tradicional] approve this client — who would need to have at least one capitalization certificate, a consortium or a savings account [para isso]. Fintechs emerged, at first, to serve customers dissatisfied with traditional banking. That is, no one is willing to bankroll this potential customer.
At Will Bank, the gateway is the credit card. Around 70% of our customers are multipliers, they use the card to buy something and pay in 30 days, to make working capital. The Northeast concentrates 60% of our customers, the region where 40% of the country’s unbanked population lives. One-third of these customers have never owned a credit card. We are reaching a customer that no one can reach.

How many customers? We have 40 million orders [de cartões de crédito] and almost 5 million issued. When it is approved, a digital account is opened. In 2022, BRL 12 billion were transacted via card and another BRL 30 billion in digital accounts.

Their product appears to be the same as traditional banks. What is different? Look. Why do 80% of the population put money in savings? The justification is that the population is not educated to make better investment options. Well, the reality is that the alternative to savings is very complex: CDB, LCA, LCI, debentures. There is a barrier for the customer to make a decision [de investimento diferente] and the financial market has no initiative to change this reality. It creates products for the financial market, not for people.
We did a survey to understand our client, why he chooses savings. We discovered that the feeling that the money factor generates in people is very negative. Not only because of the lack, but because they are afraid. It is trying to overcome this fear that we act.

Afraid of what exactly? The survey showed that 71% of people are afraid to go to some places due to financial issues. Think of Banco Safra. Not just anyone is going to get there and go in to open an account. Changing those non-rational triggers that we all have on some level is what we’re after.
Our customers said that Will Bank was the first to trust them by saying yes. It’s a matter of embarrassment. Think of a family that was born to parents who were not approved by the bank. This is very bad, you start to build a structure in which people believe that those products are not for them. Credit should be at the service of people, not the other way around.
This has to change, but we need to understand the mechanisms that prevent people from making the decision [de buscar crédito]. The offer already exists, but people believe it is not for them.

How did you change it? Our research shows that women are shy about borrowing. Men feel sadness. the digital experience [via aplicativo ou site] so help. People think they can’t owe anyone when, sometimes, it’s a necessary step to leverage their business. They are emotional variables.
Basically, what we perceive in the financial market is that the product itself has a marginal difference. The investment is still a CDB like Itaú’s. The question is how it is presented.
In our CDB we do not talk about yield as a percentage of CDI, for example. How much of the population knows what the CDI is? Saying to this client ‘get out of savings and invest in 100% of the CDI does not help. Now it’s easier to say ‘get out of savings, get R$1,000 and earn R$150’. Our products are prefixed titles that facilitate understanding.
Another example. The system [financeiro] campaigns against it, but we recognize a behavior that our audience has: sharing a credit card. A card with a limit split between five people is sometimes capable of making a transformation. Brazil is made up more of these people.

Why did you enter this market? I’m from the Northeast and it was working at Avista that I noticed the existence of 45 million unbanked people, who move BRL 800 billion [na economia], a gigantic problem that no one was willing to solve. Today we will reach R$ 2.5 billion in revenue from this business.

Why does the bank have that name? There are many Willians, Williana in the country. Will is an abbreviation of a name. So it’s like our client is talking to a person.

X-RAY
who is the banker

Age: 34
Graduated in Naval Engineering from the University of São Paulo, Felipe Felix has a master’s degree in Economics from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation. His career was consolidated in the financial market, passing through Banco Original before joining the Avista Cartão group where he served as CFO [diretor financeiro]. He founded Will Bank six years ago. Recently, he was chosen as an Endeavor Entrepreneur.

With Diego Felix

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