Empowering Teens with Financial Literacy and Driving Product Adoption – Z1 Savings

About Z1

Z1 is a Brazilian neobank designed specifically for teenagers, offering a range of financial services including prepaid credit cards, no-fee digital accounts, Pix payments, and gift card purchases. 

• Startup
• Brazil
• B2C fintech
• Near 1M users 
• 2022 

The Challenge

While Z1 continued to acquire new users, we observed evolving engagement challenges. Teens often viewed Z1 as a secondary “side account” rather than their primary banking solution. This resulted in low engagement rates and limited cash float within the app, despite high acquisition numbers.

The Goal

• Increase cash float within the app.
• Improve user engagement rates and overall app usage.
• Position Z1 as the primary banking solution for our teen users.

The Hypothesis

Z1’s initial focus was on transactional features, appealing to teens who needed a convenient way to manage small amounts of money or transfer funds between friends. I believed that expanding beyond transactional functionality and offering a dedicated savings feature would deepen Z1’s relevance in users’ lives. By empowering teens to save and plan for the future, we hypothesized that we could increase both engagement and cash float.

My Role

As the Product Manager in charge of the Savings Feature, I led several steps of the process:

• Stakeholder Alignment & Roadmap Management: I worked closely with the founders and key stakeholders (legal, compliance, support, and marketing) to secure buy-in for the savings feature and ensure alignment on scope, value proposition, and product roadmap.

• Financial Forecasting: I collaborated with the finance and FP&A teams to develop financial projections for the savings feature, demonstrating how increased adoption would drive revenue for the business.

• Scope Definition, User Story Creation & Development: I worked with the development team to define the feature scope, gather requirements, validate prototypes, translate decisions into actionable user stories, and oversee the development process. This included building Z1’s first ledger system, a significant technical undertaking.

• Go-to-Market Planning: I collaborated with marketing colleagues to develop a comprehensive go-to-market strategy, including campaigns designed to drive feature adoption and engagement.

• Launch Execution & Rollout: I created and executed the launch plan, implementing phased rollout and rollback strategies to ensure a smooth and controlled release.

• Performance Monitoring & Reporting: I tracked key performance metrics and regularly reported results to C-level executives.

Results

Implementing Savings feature generated significant results:

• Increased Cash Float: The Savings feature contributed to a 2% increase in cash float held within the Z1 app.

• New Revenue Stream: The feature generated a new revenue stream for the business, projecting almost 10% of total revenue for next 3 years. 

• Higher Usage Frequency: Overall app usage frequency increased by 5%.

The Learnings

While the Savings feature received positive feedback from adopting users, we discovered that lower-income users faced challenges in actively utilizing the feature. Many needed to contribute financially to their households and couldn’t afford to keep money idle in a savings account. This valuable insight led to adjustments in Z1’s acquisition strategies, targeting different economic segments. It also informed our product roadmap, prompting us to explore investment features as a next step to further empower users and promote financial literacy.

Team (with much appreciation for their hard work): Ana Beatriz Aldrighi, Ana Helena, and Marina Lima.