Improving Financial Literacy

Context

Panthera Finance is an Australian market leader in the debt purchasing and recovery industry. They purchase outstanding accounts from Australia’s largest banks, utility companies, and other credit or service providers. Panthera Finance is committed to providing their customers with a positive experience which lessens the stress and anxiety individuals can often experience when managing their debt.

Panthera engaged Evidn to support existing initiatives by employing a behavioural science approach to enhancing financial literacy, improving transparency, increasing accessibility to support and empowering customers to better manage their debt.

Approach

The initial phase of this project was centred around two key themes:

1 / Understanding the Psychology of Debt

Evidn first aimed to understand customers’ past experiences with debt collectors, their psychological characteristics, and the demographic traits of Panthera customers.

We consulted the literature and evidence examining what it’s like to live with problem debt, interviewed key Panthera personnel for customer insights and an overview of the collections process, reviewed various communications that customers often receive from collection agencies, and worked alongside data scientists to analyse some of Panthera’s customer data. These findings assisted us in understanding what it’s like to live with problem debt and how Panthera can best communicate with their customers.

2 / Optimising Customer Communications

The creation of optimised customer communications was further underpinned by insights obtained through immersive fieldwork and stakeholder interviews. Fieldwork and interviews focused on understanding the customer journey and the current systems surrounding Panthera’s communications including their processes, operations, and compliance and legislative requirements.

A review of psychological and behavioural science evidence as it relates to debt and finance was conducted in tandem with desktop research examining the latest market developments to identify best practice approaches to communicate with and support individuals living with problem debt.

Evidn conducted a fine-combed communications review of Panthera’s current and proposed communication materials before generating prototype communications and providing recommendations. These new materials were workshopped and co-designed with key Panthera personnel and external graphic designers to produce the final products.

Outcome

Evidn developed a suite of evidence-based materials including new welcome packages, text message and email templates and content, as well as optimized website and customer portal pages to be implemented by Panthera. The new materials draw on cutting-edge evidence to enhance customers’ experience with the debt management journey. All new materials and our recommendations focus on creating process transparency, increasing accessibility to support, enhancing financial literacy and empowering customers to better manage their debt. Importantly, an essential component of this was ensuring materials catered to culturally and linguistically diverse individuals.

Evidn is currently working with Panthera to design and conduct randomised controlled trials to test the efficacy of the new materials. We will additionally be running focus groups with Panthera customers to obtain qualitative feedback on the new materials and to better understand customer’s needs.

We also produced a tailored set of design and communication principles for Panthera based on the latest behavioural science evidence and a deep understanding of their customer base, that can be used to guide future communication materials.

Next stages of the project will centre around:

1 /  Building capacity within the organisation to ensure alignment between new communication materials and live communications with customers.

2 / Identifying customer segments to create tailored communications and engagement pathways to help Panthera to better meet customers where they’re at.