Brazil has the largest economy in Latin America. Unfortunately, it also has the largest number of unbanked citizens (45 million of its economically active population have no bank account). This is partly due to informal employment (42% of workers are unregistered), partly because of exorbitant banking fees (Brazil has the highest banking fees in the world). So they end up relying on cash (70% of Brazilians primarily use cash for day-to-day transactions), which is excluding them from the new economy, making it difficult to build credit, transfer money, make payments or even basic purchases online. As a result, it is still very common to see Brazilians standing in long lines to pay their bills at lotto branches. Costing them time, energy and even more money. Worst of all, most of them are disconnected from any path towards a dignified financial identity.

Bradesco is one of the largest banks in Brazil. Problem is, 45 million Brazilians are either unregistered workers, don’t want high banking fees, or both. So, they end up relying on cash (70% of Brazilians prefer to use cash for their day to day transactions). But as a result, those people are getting left behind in the new economy. So Bradesco created Bitz, a digital wallet and payment platform born with radically inclusive design at its core, on a mission to democratize access and create a more dignified and human financial identity for all. Bitz was thoughtfully designed to be familiar, emotive and simple, just like cash, so that those who live by cash only would readily adopt it into their everyday lives.

The unbanked audience is huge and is under-served. But they are not poor or unsophisticated. It turns out they are very economically active and digitally savvy. The real issue is that using physical money is very expensive for them.

While other players were exploring different value propositions, no one was looking at the human problem behind the business problem. In fact, no player was tackling the actual competitor: Cash.

What if the solution for the unbanked wasn’t a bank at all? We proposed a digital wallet and payment platform with radically inclusive design at its core, to democratize access and create a more dignified and human financial identity for all. The design principles would be familiar, emotive and simple, just like cash, so that those who live by cash only would readily adopt it into their everyday lives.

Bitz is a digital wallet and payment platform born with radically inclusive design at its core, on a mission to democratize access and create a more dignified and human financial identity for all. Bitz was thoughtfully designed to be familiar, emotive and simple, just like cash, so that those who live by cash only would readily adopt it into their everyday lives.

In just over a year, Bitz received over 3.3 million downloads, providing more than 5 million previously unbanked people with access to banking services, a scale that took other players in the space more than two years to achieve. Furthermore, Bitz proved to be a viable gateway to banking and the digitalization of cash, since 86% of its customers had no relationship with the financial ecosystem beforehand.