Our ultimate goal is to make banking and financial services more user-friendly and support Hong Kong’s underserved population, which will, in turn, accelerate fintech innovation in the city. – Rockson Hsu, CEO, ZA Bank
About ZA Bank
| CEO | Rockson Hsu |
| Parent company | ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co. Ltd. |
| Year of launch | 2020 |
| Headquarters | Hong Kong |
| Customer reach | 300000 |
| Number of employees | 300 |
| Revenue (2019) | USD 8.5 million |
| Net loss (2019) | (USD 45.36 million) |
Revenue Model
Product stack analysis
Table 1: Unique value propositions offered by ZA Bank
| Payments | – Multi-currency cards – In-app verification – Personalised card features – Numberless cards – Wearable technology – Personalise the last 6 digits of the card number |
| Accounts | – Multi-currency accounts in CNY, HKD, and USD – Gamified account |
| Expense management | – Account aggregation |
| Wealth management | – IPOGo |
| Rewards and offers | – Refer and earn – Rewards on spending: E-commerce, entertainment, travel, and utilities – Customer-acquisition awards |
| Marketplace integration | – Insurance from ZA Insure – Various e-commerce, entertainment, and travel service providers |
Lending
30 Minutes Pledge: ZA bank commits to providing the approval status of a customer’s loan application within 30 minutes after they submit all required documents. If the bank fails to do so, the user will get HKD10 (USD 1.29) for every minute of overtime up to HKD500 (USD 64).
Security
5 seconds recall: ZA banks offer its customers a unique option to recall their transfer if they accidentally input the wrong amount or payee information with 5 seconds after the payment was approved. This drastically reduces the time spent by both the users and the customers on reversing the transaction.
Insurance
The bank’s parent company, ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co. Ltd, is its official insurance provider. The Hong Kong Insurance Authority has authorised ZA Insure or ZA Life Limited to conduct insurance activities in Hong Kong. ZA Insure provides a variety of insurances with various offers:
- a. ZA Life Protection
- b. ZA VHIS (Medical Insurance)
- c. Cancer Protection
- d. Accident Protection
- e. Heart Attack & Stroke Protection
Wealth management
ZA One: To achieve its goal of becoming a one-stop solution for all financial needs, ZA Bank launched its wealth management service- ZA One: IPOGo- in 2021. IPOGo analyses and captures the growth of the initial public offerings (IPO) list in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. A team of experts independently manage every IPOGo account. They provide personalised recommendations to the account holders to maximise their wealth. Moreover, unlike traditional offerings, customers do not have to pay any charges for an unsuccessful IPO.
Rewards and offers
ZA Quests and capsules: ZA Bank has various reward-bearing quests for users in the ZA Bank App. Examples of the quests are: to turn on push notifications, set a nickname, verify an email address and mobile number, and more. These quests are personalised based on the customer’s usage of the neo banking application.
How can you match up with ZA Bank
- Integrate third-party services or leverage the capabilities of your parent company to offer value-added services such as wealth management and insurance to your existing products to increase revenue.
- Add gamification features to your platform for a fun banking experience.
- Develop wearable banking to engrave yourself into your customers’ everyday activities.
Top priorities for ZA Bank:
Leaders of ZA Bank should provide the following suite of services to enrich their banking journey and diversify their product stack:
- You could introduce shared/ joint accounts that will allow your customers to handle group expenses, settle bills, and achieve group saving goals to drive engagement on your platform by enabling customers to collaborate.
- You could consider building a conversational chatbot, in addition to the existing FAQs and customer service email ID, to streamline operations and solve the queries and complaints of its customers while ensuring that the process remains interactive. This will positively impact customer service KPIs, such as First Contact Resolution, Average Resolution Time, and Net Promoter Score.
- Following the footsteps of FRANK, you could consider investing in robo-advisory to manage IPOGo accounts and reduce personnel costs.
Endnotes:
ZA Bank | HK’s No.1 Virtual Bank
Meet ZA Bank, Hong Kong’s first virtual-only lender | Asian Banking & Finance