3x increase in activation of round-up savings

The Challenge

How to encourage savings among the most vulnerable clients? 

This was the main goal of a major Austrian bank, as many of their clients struggled to keep enough savings for unexpected moments. 

To help them build a safety net, the bank introduced a round-up saving feature within their mobile banking app – a free tool that rounds up every card payment and sends the spare change to a savings account.

However, the uptake among clients remained disappointingly low. Why? Two main issues stood out:

1. Poor visibility in the app – the feature was hidden deep in the menu and required several clicks to activate.
2. Uncertainty and low motivation – customers weren’t sure how it worked or why it was worth using.

The Approach

Our options were limited. We couldn’t redesign the app or move the feature to a

more visible place. What we could change was the communication promoting the feature. 

So – we came up with a seemingly illogical proposal. We added more steps to the process.

The Solution

We focused on three ways to make the feature easier to find and more attractive to use.

1. Banner in the app

First, we added a banner that caught attention and positioned Round-Up Savings as effortless, automatic, and free. It also emphasized how simple it was to set up and how it could help customers build a financial safety net.

2. Info page in the app

Because the feature was hidden deep in the app, this screen provided a clear, step-by-step guide for activation. It also explained why saving regularly matters, using an exercise analogy to make the concept easy to grasp. 

Small behavioral nudges, like urgency and loss aversion, further encouraged customers to act.

3. Reminder

Finally, we tested reminders – both email and in-app messages. The in-app message proved far more effective since it appeared right where customers could take action.

We tested three combinations of these elements:

1. Banner in the app leading straight to setup.
   
2. Banner in the app plus a follow-up email reminder.
   
3. Banner in the app leading to the info page, then setup, followed by an in.app message reminder.

A control group received no intervention and had to find the feature on their own.

The Results

The third combination proved most effective, outperforming the other two by 81% and achieving three times the conversion rate of the control group. 

The experiment confirmed our assumptions:

• The info page solved the “I can’t find it” problem.
  
• The banner in the app captured attention and framed the benefit as effortless, automatic saving.
  
• In-app reminders drove the strongest results because of the immediate connection between message and action.