Neobanks and the next step: Tinkoff

22/07/2021Interview
Stanislav Bliznyuk, Chairman of the Management Board at Tinkoff Bank, discusses the many impressive accomplishments of his institution and how much more there remains to achieve in Russia. 


The demographics of neobank users are often surprising; it is not only young people who are signing up, but also older age brackets. What is the standard profile of your target customer? What has been key to your customer acquisition success?
 
It is a common misconception that neobanks are attractive to only the younger generations, who are the ones driving industry growth. While it might be intuitive to think this, and there is a grain of truth to younger people being the early digital adopters, this is not the full picture. 
 
The young, digital natives might have been the first to start using digital financial services, but the strength and the breadth of our offering have enabled us to enjoy explosive growth well beyond this demographic. At least 60% of customers who sign up for Tinkoff Black – our current account product -- come to us via referrals from existing customers. This helps broaden our base from the digitally-savvy and highly educated to the general population.
 
Generally, such referrals provide a steady stream of new customers across business lines, thanks to our commitment to customer service and the seamless, intuitive user experience that is at the core of what we do at Tinkoff.
 
Having something for everyone also helps us to achieve a broad customer base and to continue growing it across the demographic and social strata. Today, Tinkoff is a financial and lifestyle ecosystem, serving more than 13 million customers across Russia. 
 
We offer a variety of lifestyle services within our super app, ranging from cinema and theater bookings to travel reservations and flower delivery, which we offer alongside traditional banking, payments, and insurance products. These appeal to a broad slice of the population.
 
We also have Tinkoff Junior, a popular product with teenagers, who learn about banking, spending, and financial planning from an early age by using Tinkoff – with all the requisite parental controls in place.
 
We cater to what we can broadly refer to as the ‘mass affluent’ demographic, but also have high-net-worth individuals among our customers. We are currently building out a more comprehensive offering for this customer segment, so stay tuned for some news on this.
 
Generally, we have a diverse customer base that includes active, engaged users from across the spectrum. Undoubtedly, the pandemic has also played a role in accelerating digital adoption in Russia as it has elsewhere around the world. 
 
Many were forced to try digital services for the first time last year and having discovered their convenience, they are unlikely to go back to their old habits.

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