Kept by Krunsgri: Scaling innovation in savings account

Krungsri, a financial services company, has launched a new digital banking initiative called “Kept by Krungsri,” targeting digital-savvy millennials. Kept is a pure digital bank that is structured around different stages in a customer’s digital journey, including adoption, onboarding, engagement, and servicing. With a strong value proposition and distinctive products appealing to younger segments, Kept has enhanced Krungsri’s image among millennials, boosted the number of new-to-bank customers, and significantly grown the online deposit balance.

Recently, Kept introduced a new savings product called “Together Savings”, a unique offering that allows customers to save with others or save for multiple purposes in one place. The account is solely owned by the account owner, who can invite or remove members at any time, set up target saving goals, view transaction histories, and deposit or withdraw money from the account. Members can view balances and transactions, but they cannot withdraw money themselves.

With an innovation that can impact a large number of customers, Kept by Krungsri has been declared the winner of the Best Savings Account category at the recent Global Retail Banking Innovation Awards 2022, organised by The Digital Banker.

Nirav Patel, Managing Director at The Digital Banker, said during the awards ceremony, “Kept has enhanced Krungsri’s digital banking capabilities, improved the digital experience, and enabled business agility and digital readiness for competing in the future of banking.”

The value of Together Savings

In July 2021, Kept launched a new product, Together Savings, a savings account that transforms the savings experience of joint accounts to be more convenient, transparent, and fun. Together Savings not only helps enhance customer experience when saving with others, but it also helps customers gain

a better sense of control over their savings.

The unique features of the newly launched Together Savings include:

Distinctive digital group savings: Together Savings is a solely owned saving account with joint account features. It was created based on the insight that “customers save and manage money with someone with the same purpose.”

Together Savings provides features for the “Money Manager” or account owner to create multiple Together accounts for different groups of members with different purposes. The owner can invite or remove members at any time, set up target saving goals, view the transaction history of each account, deposit money, and withdraw money from the account based on a specified purpose. Once the owner invites members to a specific account, all members can view balances and deposit money into the account. Though members cannot withdraw money, they will receive notifications when the owner withdraws money. Together Savings helps make the saving process among friends and family members easier and more transparent.

Multiple purpose digital savings: Together Savings can also be used by individuals who have multiple saving purposes. With multiple goals, customers can keep all their saving goals in one place, making it easier to track and manage them, and increasing the likelihood of achieving them.

Simple, speedy, and paperless experience: Kept offers a self-service onboarding with identity verification using Thailand’s National Digital ID infrastructure (NDID) and blockchain technology. New customers can open their first digital savings accounts on their mobile phones from anywhere in five minutes, with no paperwork to sign. They can easily open Together Savings accounts using just their faces through biometric identity verification.

Gamified banking: For Together Savings, Kept by Krungsri added another core gamification feature called “Social influence,” which allows people to join a savings account as a group quest. As a group quest, customers can create a mission, goal, and name the jar. Using social influence on Together Savings, customers can invite friends to join the jars, save together, and complete the mission as a group.

Strong value proposition

With a strong value proposition and distinctive products appealing to younger segments, Kept has enhanced Krungsri’s image with the Millennial segment, boosted the number of new-to-bank customers, and significantly grown the online deposit balance. Kept achieved 150% of its target customer base and 500% of its target balance in the first year and doubled its customer base in the following years.