The Portugal Fintech Report 2021
INNOVATION THROUGH COLLABORATION
Lovys &
Ma Nouvelle Ville
BORN IN FRANCE TO CONQUER EUROPE, WITH PORTUGUESE DNA
ABOUT LOVYS
Traditional insurance was created a long time ago and it has little to do with the habits of today’s consumers. This idea inspired João Cardoso to create his third venture in the insurance field.
Lovys was born in 2017, in France, one of the largest and most competitive European insurance markets. The lack of large insurtechs, which offered a quality digital experience to French users, combined perfectly with the good environment and context of innovation that the country has been experiencing.
The name, Lovys, was inspired by the affinity we develop with the objects and goods we want to protect.
BORN TO CHANGE THE MAJOR PARADIG MS OF THE INDUSTRY
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The first is that online insurance is merely a digital copy of insurance products that were bought in street shops. In partner-
ship with renowned insurers such as Generali, La Parisienne, MAIF and Swiss Re, it decided to create its own products, having only one inspiration: the customers. It is in meetings with potential customers that everything begins, listening not only to real needs but also testing various product configurations long before the moment of launch.
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Secondly, every part of the product is designed for transparency, clarity and simplicity: the customer has a budget in
2 minutes, can freely add the options they want and finish the subscription within a few clicks. All this without commercial teams, without intrusive phone calls but with an inbound customer service always available.
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Thirdly, Lovys’ customers can only use... Lovys. Through a wider range of products, customers can have their insu-
rance integrated into a single monthly subscription, which they can cancel or change at any time, and can manage all their insurance in a single customer area.
THE B2B2C MODEL AND THE CASE OF MA NOUVELLE VILLE
In addition to a direct subscription in the app and website, Lovys also offers a B2B2C model to companies wishing to integrate the sale of insurance on its own website, or to market them in offline channels. The premise is the same as always: maximise the convenience of the purchase to the end-user, favouring the relationship that already exists between the user and the distribution partner. Lovys has developed solutions to potential partners in traditional banking, digital banking, telecom, automotive and also retail and e-commerce. But it is in the real estate services sector that the company found one of the best success cases: Ma Nouvelle Ville.
Ma Nouvelle Ville is a subsidiary of a bigger group called Action Logement, and facilitates the access to housing in professional contexts. Its ambition is to offer a complete and personalised support solution, from the search for accommodation to the related administrative procedures. Because home insurance is mandatory and of great importance in France, Ma Nouvelle Ville wanted to complete its offer of services by adding this product. The company has thus chosen Lovys to “strengthen its mission in the service of families on the move, by simplifying as much as possible their procedures for cancelling and taking out insurance contracts.”
“The choice of insurance is a key element in a move” explains its Managing Director, Luc Moréna. “All the more so as a certificate of housing insurance is legally obligatory. Traditional insurance companies offer contracts that include a huge amount of documents and complex clauses. Their offer was not in line with the leitmotif of Ma Nouvelle Ville. We launched an appeal to find an insurance policy in line with our vision, and Lovys quickly became an obvious choice”. An alliance that allows Lovys to extend its network of distribution partners. Also, both companies found since day one a shared ambition: the obsession to offer a fluid and simple experience to its customers.
THE CHALLENGE AT STAKE
The main challenges of the partnership were very clear:
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Ma Nouvelle Ville had specialized teams to follow each client, with a very tailored service. At the same time, those teams did not have the capacity to sell insurance. Also, the fact that the staff was spread across the whole country created an additional challenge.
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Ma Nouvelle Ville wanted to offer products with good value-for-money, 100% digital and very easy to understand both for the customer and the staff.
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Ma Nouvelle Ville needed to have full visibility of the partnership’s performance, since this was a very important project to them.
Although Lovys is prepared to offer all of its insurance products, the company has concentrated efforts on home insurance, which was expected to be the hero product of the partnership. Lovys teams run qualitative tests with real customers to guarantee that all the concepts, questions and even documents sent were clear and simple. Afterwards, the company created several e-trainings to be passed to the commercial teams of Ma Nouvelle Ville. Content about insurance as a whole but specifically about Lovys products was carefully transmitted.
Finally, Lovys developed in-house a dedicated partner’s backoffice to not only show revenue and sales in real-time but also to allow a more efficient interface for the commercial teams to generate quotes to Ma Nouvelle Ville clients. This backoffice was already linked to Lovys pricing systems, whose algorithms take into account proxies to determine the competitiveness of a certain police in the market. The fact that everything is developed “at home” has been one of the main competitive advantages of the company. The integration flexibility is total, being possible in some cases to guarantee an implementation with distribution partners in 3 weeks.
Despite all the technology deployed, the experience to the end user was proved to be very smooth.
OUTPUT & TAKEAWAYS
From an end-user perspective, one member from the Ma Nouvelle Ville starts by asking if he is interested in receiving an exclusive offer from their partner Lovys. If that is the case, the user can do a quote himself directly in the website or, alternatively, answer a few questions over the phone to receive a quote by email. The email has a link that allows the user to finish the subscription whenever he wants, within a couple clicks.
The final secret sauce is only one: people. Cobuilding a distribution partnership means to build a strong relationship with whom we work with. A good outline of challenges, as well as smart and agile solutions to be tested along the way are key success factors. Constant availability to learn, to get to know the end-users of our partners, and to listen a whole lot are likewise pivotal.
There are already several hundred Ma Nouvelle Ville clients who subscribed at least one insurance product from Lovys. For Luc Moréna, “this partnership with Lovys reinforces our positioning as a quality service platform offering all the necessary resources to families on the move. The agility of Lovys, the quality of its teams and the competitiveness of its products make it an important player in the French property insurance market.”
Accenture
POWERING AN INNOVATION HUB FOR FINANCIAL SERVICES
Through the last decade, in the era of digital adoption, Accenture embraced the challenge of helping its clients rotate to the new. The long-lasting relationship with our financial services clients (banking and insurance) placed us in a privileged position to help them adopt, transform, and apply new technologies. This allowed them to not only create business efficiencies, but also improve their performance in the long run, creating new sources of value to all stakeholders. On that same decade, alongside the surging investment in the development and adoption of new technologies, start-ups in the financial services landscape gained traction as their value propositions started making an impact on the industry, with some key Fintechs and Insurtechs becoming a reference on dimensions such as customer experience and payments. And with the unfolding of their long-term strategy, Accenture encouraged its clients to seek and develop customer-centric value propositions, invest in innovation and pursue new competitive advantages to enable the relevancy and the trust required to maintain sustainable relationships with customers.
Moving forward, with innovation at the core of Accenture, it made perfect sense to give our contribution at a global scale, so we were poised to build an innovation hub specialized in advanced technologies such as Artificial Intelligence. A hub to foster the creativity of our talent and to bridge the existing gap between our clients and the innovation ecosystem, unlocking growth opportunities and accelerating their transformation by bringing them together with our expertise and the best-in-class Fintech. And so was born The Bay, launched in 2020 as an Innovation Habitat for financial services, committed to the goal of exploring and capitalizing on our AI capability network and providing innovative solutions capable of reinventing and improving the business of financial services all over Europe.
WHAT’S IN IT FOR THE ECOSYSTEM
By benefiting from our unique network, Accenture offers the opportunity for established companies and surging Fintech players to triangulate between our international network, clients, and our established relationships with regulators, along with the support of partnerships with top tier Universities. The Bay´s mission is simple, to bring our talent, capabilities, and network together by leveraging our ability to build prototype unique solutions and hence drive innovation through the European Financial Services landscape. Instead of predicting future trends, we move forward inventing them in a way we can disrupt the industry, reshape business models, and change the relationship of our clients with their customers through innovation and differentiation.
As stated by Paul Daugherty, our Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, “The pace of technological change sweeping boldly across business and society is breathtaking - and it is taking us from the digital age towards a new reality, a new era that Accenture predicts will be the post-digital era.”
With The Bay, we prepare our clients for what comes after digital, the post-digital era, which bears the challenge of innovating, of staying relevant and sustaining existing competitive advantages while continuously pursuing additional differentiation. We aim for enterprises collaborating within The Bay to grasp this opportunity to grow their business and benefit from tailor-made synergies that create value and, in result, enhance the ecosystem as a whole, by building trust and creating responsible innovation.
BUILDING A WORLDCLASS PLATFORM
From the conceptualization to the establishment of this innovation habitat, we have been working closely with international references in innovation and collaborating worldwide to guarantee the best approach and framework to idealize, envision, prototype, and create new value propositions. Furthermore, we sought to lay the right foundations with the support of key stakeholders in the ecosystem by inviting them as founders, in order to offer the privilege of accessing our projects in early stages of development and see firsthand our partnerships in action. The market interest in boarding this opportunity with Accenture was overwhelming, motivating us to create the best possible collaboration environment, based not only on the Portuguese market experience we have acquired over 30 years, but also leveraging on the international references in North America, Europe, and Asia that Accenture commands.
We chose to focus on Artificial Intelligence as AI is already leading the next wave of industrial and technological transformation. AI remains a demanding core competency of any C-level investment and strategy, from the automation of business functions, to the scanning of unprecedented amounts of data and sophisticated neuronal networks. It is essential to develop any interface both simple and smart and it is just starting to lay the foundations for how future interactions between businesses and customers will work.
COMBINING INNOVATION WITH INDUSTRY EXPERTISE
With the global reach of The Bay we have already established partnerships with European Fintechs and Insurtechs to create synergies between our industry expertise and their unique value propositions. And although The Bay is still young, it already encompasses several ready-to-go solutions we can demo our clients to start collaborating with them to create value.
MICRO-USE-CASES: INSURANCE
MICRO-USE-CASES: BANKING
Would it be possible to start turning your average bank customers into investors? With AI based interactions and recommendations it is not only possible, but also more effective. With the understanding of a customer’s profile and needs, it is possible to present to that same customer a best-fit investment proposal based on multiple data inputs including portfolio performance tracking for automatic rebalancing and optimization. This solution allows for an easier, faster and less costly way to open investment accounts, to plan and automate investment decisions and minimize trading fees due to passive investment orientation.
Can a bank increase revenue and customer satisfaction at the same time? Yes, it is now possible to monetize customers payment accounts data while benefiting both the bank and customer. To make it happen our solution continuously generates meaningful and useful recommendations based on customer consumer habits and provides actionable money saving opportunities leveraged by an ecosystem of partners. The result is meaningful savings for customers and measurable revenue for the bank.
What if you could be rewarded for being a good driver and pay your car insurance according to the km’s you drove? And, what if this concept could also be applied to commercial vehicle fleets? In The Bay we can make it possible, by combining a powerful mobile app that leverages advanced ML algorithms and our fleet management solution.
Just imagine if after a car accident you could have access to the cost of repair in a few minutes, without the need to go through the lengthy repair shop assessment process? In The Bay we have already started to transform this idea into reality. Using the camera of a mobile phone, the driver can easily capture the damage of the car and our AI engine does the rest. It assesses and estimates of the cost of repair, providing immediate feedback on the damages to both driver and insurer.
W e are confident our work will help Banks and Insurers enter the post-digital era with confidence, relevancy , and efficiency, always with the premise that, as artificial intelligence grows in its capabilities - and its impact on people’s lives - we must help businesses invest to “raise” their AIs to act as responsible, productive members of society
Switch & its
Terminal Application
Switch is a portuguese Fintech based in Porto, which provides the technical infrastructure for transaction orchestration across the entire payments value chain. It was founded in 2015 by Ruca Sousa Marques (CEO), André Tavares (COO) and Pedro Campos (CTO). The Fintech is focused on the European market, but has already established connections in the USA, where it intends to start operations in 2021.
As a payment platform as a service, Switch provides tools for operational optimization, helping non-IT staff to take knowledgeable actions without having to depend on their development teams.
A PLATFORM FOR SYSTEM INTEROPERABILITY
Switch’s micro-services architecture allows it to expose applications independently through different APIs on a modular basis, enabling Acquirers to consume specific applications on an À La Carte model, allowing them to capitalize on existing legacy systems and prepare for the challenges ahead.
SWITCH PARTNERED WITH A LEADING PORTUGUESE BANK, TO SUPPORT THEIR RENEWED ACQUIRING OFFER. THIS INNOVATIVE APPROACH INVOLVED ABSTRACTING ITS PROCESSING INFRASTRUCTURE USING THE SWITCH PLATFORM, TO EXPLORE NEW TERMINAL MODELS AND MULTI-PROCESSOR OPERATION.
SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF PAYMENT OPERATIONS’ MANAGEMENT
As commerce trends push Merchants to deliver a unified shopping experience both online and instore, it is increasingly complex and costly to manage payment operations across multiple distribution channels.
On the other hand, merchants and acquirers have been historically locked-in technically to a Pointto-Point encryption (P2PE) setup, where a limited range of POS terminal models are certified by, and directly connected to acquirer processors. This fact has significant limitations:
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On stand-alone terminals, transaction data is not accessible in real-time which makes it impossible to feed actionable business applications (e.g. CRM; Financial Reporting);
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Transactions are processed by a single Acquirer Processor, which limits businesses’ ability to adopt cost-saving and acceptance-improving strategies;
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Businesses have limited choice on the available hardware and software;
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Technical lock-in means less negotiation power, with expected negative results on project timelines and service levels;
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Operational scale becomes limited to the geographies covered by the acquirer processor;
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Different data structures prevents businesses from having centralized control over their entire payments operation, with limited ability for optimization.
COMPREHENSIVE ACQUIRING OFFER FOR CARD-PRESENT AND E-COMMERCE ENVIRONMENTS
Targeted to SMEs, the objective was to offer a comprehensive acquiring offer both for cardpresent and e-commerce environments, where a white-label version of the Switch Dashboard would provide an omnichannel interface for merchants.
A white-label version of the Switch Platform documentation also supported simple integration guides for web and mobile applications, adding alternative payment methods to the portfolio (e.g. PayPal).
The bank acquired a stock of Android-based terminals, distributed between 4 different models, where the Switch Terminal Application was installed. These terminals could then leverage the Switch Terminal Application SDK to offer integration with 3rd party applications, offering these stand-alone models POS capabilities off-the-shelf.
The target merchants demanded a seamless onboarding experience, so a website was developed to collect know-your-business information, which then was sent through web services to the acquirer processor, to the encryption and support organization, and to Switch. The encryption and support organization could then associate a specific terminal to a merchant account in the Switch Platform—using the Switch Terminal API— and later ship the terminal to the merchant, which would be immediately able to accept payments.
Clearing files were later communicated by the acquirer processor to the Switch Platform and automatically reconciled by the Switch Reconciliation application, pinpointing fee, and settlement inconsistencies.
The Switch Reconciliation Application would then automatically calculate the amounts to payout to merchants on a scheduled basis, by assigning the fee and reserve structure agreed on the commercial plan to each batch.
WE DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUTURE RESERVES, BUT ONE THING WE CAN BE SURE: IN AN EVER-EVOLVING INDUSTRY, THE ONLY WAY TO SURVIVE IS TO BECOME ADAPTABLE.
Visa
THE RAPIDLY EVOLVING PAYMENT INDUSTRY
The Payment Industry is rapidly evolving. Payments have entered a period of dramatic disruption as they become unthered from a place or point-of-sale (POS), and are incresingly embedded in apps, devices, appliances and the growing Internet-of-Things universe (new ways to pay). This occurred as non-traditional players injected new ideas and technologies into the traditional payments’ ecosystem, further expanding the reach of digital payments around the world – and increasing consumer expectations for seamless experiences1.
The entire payments ecosystem has seen an onslaught of new ways to pay that go far beyond the card and make digital payments even more accessible to consumers globally. Examples include:
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Growth of QR codes;
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Increase in payments capabilities in messaging platforms;
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Proliferation of eCommerce and mobile payment services;
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IoT devices that can make almost anything a point of sale (STAT: By 2021, 25 billion devices will be connected to the Internet); and
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Blockchain-powered payments protocols that are designed to operate leveraging the trusted and reliable payment ecosystem1.
What has emerged as a result are economies that are increasingly cashless, with an anytime, anywhere commerce mindset. Now, accelerated by the current pandemic, the industry digitalization has reached its maximum speed so far, now with all the industry stakeholders actively engaging to enable payments means to fit the new normal behaviours. An example of this phenomenon is the contactless adoption in Portugal, with Bank of Portugal registering now almost double its use when compared to pre-Pandemic2 .
NEW PAYMENT FLOWS & VISA DIRECT
With this changing environment and industry development, Visa is committed to accelerating the migration to digital payments and expanding the payment choices that consumers, businesses and governments have, enabling new types of transactions beyond the core consumer-tobusiness (C2B) payments. These include person-to-person (P2P), business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B) and government-to-consumer (G2C) payments3 . Today, our partners are increasingly using Visa’s network infrastructure and capabilities to power new ways to pay and be paid1.
A clear example of one of those capabilities is Visa Direct, a fast and secure payments platform that allows financial institutions, developers and partners to use Visa’s global network to offer real-time4 push payments to more than a billion cards globally, enabling multiple applications such as:
GIG ECONOMY
84%5 of gig workers would work more if they were paid
daily or on demand. Visa Direct allows gig economy companies to offer workers the ability to collect earnings whenever they want, including same day pay-outs when jobs are completed.
INSURANCE
58%6 dissatisfied insurers' customers point the slow
claim payment process as the reason. Visa Direct enables insurance providers to offer customers the ability to collect claims, including same day pay-outs, as soon as claims are approved.
PAYROLL
95%7 of employees are interested in working for an emloyer
who provides earned wage access. Visa Direct allows companies to give their employees the option to access their wages early when they need it
SMALL BUSINESSES & MARKETPLACE
60%8 of small businesses report
cash flow is a monthly concern. Settlement with Visa Direct can speed up the access to funds, allowing payment facilitators to offer merchants the ability to collect card receivable pay-outs when they want.
These are just a few examples of the most recent use cases, but Visa Direct is already widely used for P2P and international remittances by some of the main players in those spaces. And it will not stop here, as the industry continues to evolve and more consumers and businesses choose digital payments, they will look for simpler and more convenient ways to move their money.
VISA &
About Setoo
Setoo is an insurance-as-a-service start-up, present in the UK and France, that empowers e-businesses to create and distribute tailored insurance products through its platform. With a quick and easy approach, e-merchants can build and distribute simple and customized insurance products embedded into their customer journey, securing them against unpredicted adverse events that could derail their experience.
Setoo joined forces with Visa in order to take insurance services to the next level and deliver automated, real-time pay-outs to customers leveraging Visa Direct platform.
So, what was the challenge? Providing immediate access to funds during times of need.
From travel delays to natural disasters, emergencies arise when people least expect them. During these trying times, individuals are often unprepared to complete forms, confirm claim estimates and pay expenses. In these moments, immediate access to funds is critical.
Historically, insurance pay-outs have been a cumbersome experience dominated by inefficient and slow payment methods such as cheques and bank transfers. Customers often wait days or weeks for a cheque to clear or a bank transfer to post.
What solution came in place? Real-time4 payments to the rescue!
Using Visa Direct, Setoo now offers a real-time4 pay-out solution to its customers. When a customer purchases insurance powered by Setoo with their Visa debit card, Setoo pays out claims in realtime1 directly back to the card, without collecting any additional information from the customer. In the event of an incident, a single authorization and a clearing message is sent to Visa, with funds posted to the cardholder’s account, typically within seconds4.
Visa Direct allows Setoo’s automated, real-time4 pay-outs to happen seamlessly and immediately.
What has Setoov achieved with this solution? An industry-leading customer experience.
Adding a push-to-card pay-out option, powered by Visa Direct, creates a hassle-free claims experience for Setoo’s customers. Customers are immediately paid and able to use the funds to mitigate the emergency at hand.
Visa is committed to working with innovative companies in the insurance industry to transform outdated and time-consuming pay-out processes into real-time1 access to funds when individuals, families and businesses need them the most.
Together, Visa and Setoo provide a customerdriven solution that addresses one of the biggest pain points of the insurance industry.
1 Open Innovation to Enable the Future of Commerce, Visa, April 2018
2 Os pagamentos “sem contacto” até 50 euros vieram para ficar, Banco de Portugal, July 2020
3 Visa Inc. Overview, May 2020
4 Actual fund availability depends on receiving financial institution and region. Visa requires fast funds enabled insurers to make funds available to their recipient cardholders within a maximum of 30 minutes of approving the transaction.
5 PYMNTS Gig Economy Study November 2017.
6 Accenture Global Pulse Survey, December 2018.
7 2019 Earned Wage Access Insights: Accenture Research
8 Planning and Management Technology Can Increase the Lifetime Value of Your Business Customers”, Barlow Research 2015.
DISCLAIMERS: All brand names, logos and/or trademarks are the property of their respective owners, are used for identification purposes only, and do not necessarily imply product endorsement or affiliation with Visa. Case studies, comparisons, statistics, research and recommendations are provided “AS IS” and intended for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon for operational, marketing, legal, technical, tax, financial or other advice. Visa Inc. neither makes any warranty or representation as to the completeness or accuracy of the information within this document, nor assumes any liability or responsibility that may result from reliance on such information. The Information contained herein is not intended as investment or legal advice, and readers are encouraged to seek the advice of a competent professional where such advice is required.
Alfredo &
MaisConsultores
BRINGING INTELLIGENCE TO THE REAL ESTATE MARKET
Alfredo is a digital platform that brings intelligence to the real estate market. The project was launched in Portugal in the beginning of 2019 due to the lack of structured online real estate data and the thriving residential market. The founding team saw an opportunity to use the latest state of the art machine learning techniques bringing novel ways to create data pipelines in the real estate world. The process resulted in an intelligent AI powered business suite for real estate stakeholders which streamlines their data collection and intelligence pipelines putting them ahead of competition. Their products include an instant AI powered real estate market report, an unified asset listing platform and a lead generation funnel. Alfredo’s clients include realtors, agents, analysts, appraisers and their corresponding institutions.
DIGITALIZING REAL ESTATE, DISRUPTING THE MARKET, ACCELERATING RESULTS
Real estate agents and realtors found in Alfredo’s technology a way to bootstrap their existing sales pipeline. Their work process starts with identifying potential leads and converting them into clients. This process, unaided by information technologies is very manual and laborous. It starts by looking online for future prospects, contacting them, manually manufacturing a decent real estate market report and going for the sales conversion. There are obvious problems while doing this activity, first and foremost, the information listed online is inaccurate; secondly, producing a decent real estate market report is something that takes experience and time, being an essential tool to demonstrate professionalism. These problems lead the development of the current Alfredo’s products: the AI powered real estate market report, unified listing portal and the lead generation funnel.
Alfredo’s AI powered real estate market report allows real estate stakeholders to perform instant reports using the latest state of the art machine learning algorithms joined with real time market data. A proprietary process of 4-steps allows any individual to understand what is happening on the market through a process of explainable AI (XAI) tailored to fit any level of user understanding, experienced or beginner. This report includes a novel automated valuation model (AVM) developed by the founding team for the residential real estate market using their previous statistical modeling experience and by partnering with innovative real estate stakeholders.
DRIVING SUCCESS FOR MAISCONSULTORES
One partner was important on the inception of this first product, a franchise called MaisConsultores which uses Artificial Intelligence to build novel ways for realtors and agents to broker their business. Given the statistical capability of Alfredo, building a powerful automated real estate market report was paramount to achieve higher efficiency in the sales pipeline. Differentiating tools, integrations and automation are a major selling points to attract new talent when comparing to the older and technologically stagnant franchises. To be a real estate top player you need to invest in the new technological agent. The partnership paid off and the results are measurable, MaisConsultores has gone up from 10 franchise clients to 23 in the space of a year, more than doubling their agent filiation, from 350 to 1k real estate agents. Alfredo contributed to the whole client onboarding experience by providing a tool that empowers its users in a very important part of the process, the price making of a real estate asset by allowing its agents to support their actions providing a sound and powerful real time real estate market report. Since the beginning of 2019 MaisConsultores has already conducted more than 15k+ automated AI powered real estate market reports, provided by Alfredo.
ALFREDO IS THE TOOL MAISCONSULTORES WAS NEEDING
This report is already an essential tool on the Portuguese market, and its available on the Alfredo AI powered business suite, used by the top market performers which also participated in its development. Since 2019 more than 100k+ AI powered real estate market reports have been conducted on their digital platform.
The unified listing portal is a window to access everything that is listed online. A known fact identified by the real estate stakeholders is that what is listed online has problems of data quality and consistency. Thus, when going through these listings to find new opportunities, a lot of energy is spent trying to filter signal from noise. Alfredo’s unified listing portal uses multiple machine learning techniques to identify problems and correct them regarding data consistency and quality. The most notorious examples of these algorithms are:
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Natural language processing (NLP), used to identify whether the asset maps’ position is in concordance with what’s posted on writing. Internally we verified that 12% of all assets listed online have their map position wrongly inserted to confuse competitors;
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Image recognition, used to identify if the same real estate asset is listed on multiple platforms. Although there are multiple solutions for this problem, the team developed a novel approach using deep learning, graph theory and semi supervised learning to achieve the best results. Given that the same asset might have different representations on multiple platforms, Alfredo’s approach consolidates what the real representation of the asset is. Alfredo found out that 50%+ of the online listing are duplicates, and its methodology correctly identifies them as such.
The lead generation funnel consists of a customizable website which interacts directly with the realtor or agent client. By asking the end client directly what is looking for online, a special channel is created which automatically generates a personalized AI power real estate market report. This product was launched during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and is a proven way to interact directly with customers given the social distance boundaries that are in place. This product is responsible for generating more than 5k+ high quality leads for their clients.
Alfredo’s closeness to their customers allowed them to tailor made their products and achieve a notable market share of around 7%-10% (3k+ users) in just two years in the realtors and agents. The tool is getting intrinsically fused into realtors and agents workflows and is the number one choice in intelligence real estate market framework and a proof of this is that even when the users switch institutions they bring Alfredo’s business suite with them.
THE REAL ESTATE DIGITAL ERA IS HERE
Machine learning technologies have matured and are a valuable tool to provide automation and efficiency. Alfredo is proof that a dedicated team with a solid mission in mind can have a positive impact. Their AI powered real estate business suite is improving market liquidity by providing the buyer and seller side the trust that needs to exist for a transaction to happen, i.e., a clear, solid, transparent and reliable stream of specialized intelligence and information. The plan of the startup is to expand their product into other geographies, starting in 2021.
Stay tuned...
Visor AI &
Millennium BCP
SERVICE AUTOMATION AND DIGITALIZATION
Visor.ai is a technology company committed to helping large companies automate their services through chat, e-mail, and voice bots using Artificial Intelligence and automation. The history of Visor.ai begins with three childhood friends, Gonçalo Consiglieri, Gianluca Pereyra, and Bruno Matias, who, in 2015, left their jobs to take their first steps in the world of entrepreneurship. They started in a project that did not have the desired traction. After that, they participated in a hackathon with Beta-i and Lisbon City Hall and then realized which path to follow and what the companies needed.
It was then, in 2016, that Visor.ai (from the combination of “Virtual Advisor” and “Artificial Intelligence”) appeared, with a chat solution that brought companies closer to their clients.
Since then, the company has grown and evolved its solution and now has dozens of customers on three continents.
THE SOLUTION COMPANIES NEED
Visor.ai focuses on the services of large and medium-sized companies, namely the banking and insurance sectors, which receive thousands of contacts every day from their clients and other stakeholders.
Many of these contacts have a simple and immediate resolution, but they take time to be answered because there is no integrated automation system.
Companies that adopt Visor.ai solutions manage to automate, on average, about 70% of their contacts with customers and generate around 10% of commercial leads.
In addition to customer contacts, Visor.ai bots can be implemented internally in companies, optimizing communications between employees and departments.
The case we will talk about focuses on a banking institution that invested in Visor.ai solution for internal process automation.
WORKING WITH ONE OF THE LARGEST BANKS IN PORTUGAL
Banks work very much based on specific processes, and each subject has many procedures, which makes it impossible for workers to know all the information by heart.
Banco Millennium BCP, which already had an internal solution, needed an improved solution to help branch employees give their customers an even better service.
The solution consisted of a system that would work as a “library” and provide all the necessary information. The system they once had worked was based on keywords, and the employees themselves had to search for the answers. If they couldn’t find it or weren’t willing to explore, they called the internal support department. However, it was an inefficient solution, which made obtaining information time-consuming, requiring many human resources to meet colleagues’ numerous requests.
It was then that Millennium decided to implement the Visor.ai chat solution with automation and live chat with assistants.
VISOR.AI SOLUTION AT MILLENNIUM BCP
VISOR.AI SOLUTION AT MILLENNIUM BCP
Visor.ai offers chat channel automation solutions (that can include voice) and e-mail. In terms of contact with the public, it can integrate with the website, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp of companies.
Concerning e-mail, it can integrate with any CRM and ERP system, such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, Go Contact, among others. In the case of Millennium, the chat solution was implemented within the bank’s internal system to reduce response time and optimize employee work
Since the bank already had a knowledge base of the previous system, it was not necessary to use the templates developed by Visor.ai. These templates allow companies that do not have a collection of customers’ questions to accelerate setting up the chat and/or e-mail bot.
The implementation phase of the knowledge base was thorough due to the extension of the existing history provided by MBCP. The approach consisted of a gradual release of automated answers to solve the more frequently asked questions.
After the questions’ setup, it was necessary to include each answer and define each case’s paths and options.
Finally, Visor.ai’s chatbot was available in Millennium BCP internal services, and the results were terrific.
ACHIEVING GREAT RESULTS
“The experience and feedback from the Bank’s internal network have been great.” António Seixas, Team Coordinator at Millennium BCP
Today, with less than a year since implementation, the Millennium BCP chatbot has an above-average efficiency. It has dramatically reduced the need for human support to branches - the complete opposite of what would happen without the Visor. ai automation solution.
In addition to above-average efficiency, the bank managed to reduce costs, optimize its employees’ work, and increase their level of satisfaction.
Following the success of the solution implemented at Millennium BCP, different integrations are being prepared that allow bank transactions through this channel. And even the expansion of the chatbot to a larger number of users within the bank
WHAT MADE VISOR.AI DIFFERENT, AND THE PERFECT PARTNER
Visor.ai stands out in automated solutions for being low-code, which allows an easy implementation and use in the platform. Besides, it is entirely cloudbased, which enables its remote and autonomous maintenance by clients.
One of Visor.ai’s most differentiating factors is its specialization in the Portuguese Language and the Natural Language Processing technology. The NLP was developed internally to meet the Visor.ai team’s requirements and clients’ needs.
Furthermore, Visor.ai always adopts a clientcentered strategy; we care about listening to our clients and responding to their needs, both in terms of platform improvements and any other level.
Visor.ai is proud of its 95% customer retention rate. This number proves the companies’ satisfaction that bet on Visor.ai solutions and the willingness to continue working with us.
Finally, the secret ingredient is people. The Visor. ai team works tirelessly every day to offer the best services and support to its customers.
