News
App enables operators to profile prepaid customers and offer them financial services based on their track record.
San Francisco-based Juvo announced itself to the world on Friday, promising to help mobile operators boost revenue and loyalty by enabling their prepaid users to build up what is effectively a credit score, giving them access to a range of financial services.
Juvo comes in the form of an iOS or Android app, pitched to end users in partnership with their operator. Once installed, the app analyses the user’s behaviour and generates a score that it shares with their operator. Users are also encouraged to proactively boost their score by interacting with the app, providing a clearer picture of who they are to their operator.
Juvo calls it ‘identity scoring’, and it serves a similar purpose to credit scoring, since that score can then be used as the basis for lending the end user small amounts of voice, data and SMS credit.
The longer the app is used for, the more detailed the picture of the customer becomes, until, with a high enough identity score, customers become eligible for a greater range of financial services, such as banking, loans, and insurance.
"Juvo helps turn a previously ‘invisible’ customer into a ‘visible’ one – opening doors for the customer, the mobile operator and financial service providers alike, and bringing us closer to our vision of financial inclusion for all," said Steve Polsky, CEO and founder of Juvo, in a statement.
Juvo soft-launched in 2014 and claims that mobile operators using its identity scoring technology have seen a 10%-15% uptick in ARPU.
This is thanks to increased usage and loyalty from prepaid customers, many of whom normally carry multiple SIM cards, switching them in and out of their phone depending on which one has the highest credit balance or which operator happens to be offering the best price at the time.
"Customers using Juvo’s proprietary technology always stay connected, and mobile operators keep their customers online longer, thus improving customer satisfaction, network efficiency and profitability," said one of Juvo’s backers, former Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin.
Sarin was one of several big names who participated in Juvo’s recently-completed funding round, which raised US$14 million (€12.4 million).
The others include former AT&T Wireless chief Mohan Gyani, ex-Telefonica International CEO António Viana-Baptista, and Duncan Niederauer, former CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, among others.
"Juvo’s leadership team has deep expertise and an enviable track record in mobile telecoms and financial services, and the company is well positioned to not only accelerate the digital transformation of mobile operators, but also to address the wider socio-economic issues around financial inclusion," Niederauer said.
