"Disruption" is the key word in Raven's proposal, a Virtus Partners consultancy spin-off.
For Juan José de la Torre, CEO of the firm, "this concept basically involves questioning the fundamentals of a market, the way in which an organization operates and the value proposition of a company, to turn them around and do things a different way." This is precisely what they offer to clients from various industries, mainly outside of Chile. The approach, he says, caught the attention of a major international bank, which sought out Raven to face the challenge of reinventing its value proposition around retirement savings in Spain. Said country is facing a crisis in its pension system due to an imbalance between the people who contribute to the system and those who benefit.
De la Torre explains: "For the system to work properly, it requires that there be more people contributing to the base of the pyramid than those who retire, in addition to requiring a sufficient contribution to sustain it. In Spain, people contribute to something that It is not an individual contribution, but rather a global fund and has a very high replacement rate.
This has gradually broken the system and today it is not viable". In this context, second-tier insurance emerged in Spain, as an additional alternative to the state voluntary savings system, in response to "a growing distrust as to what will actually be received, given that the rules are changing. The retirement age, the replacement rate is reduced and the CPI increases", explains De la Torre.
Raven focused on achieving a solution that would encourage retirement savings through two new businesses, combining the evolution of the current one with the creation of a disruptive one, focused on two segments: young people and 50-year-olds.
For the former, a gamification strategy was designed that turns saving into a game with the aim of generating long-term saving habits. "We encourage you to save from an early age and we reward long-term savings that you allocate to retirement. For example, we offer a credit card that instead of giving you reimbursement points, gives you money to save on pensions. In this way, each every time you spend, you save," says de la Torre.
As for the 50-year-old segment, the bet was to focus beyond the product and "return to the needs and interests of the people." A 100% digital solution was designed where people specify how much money they want to retire with.
With this information, it is possible to estimate how much remains to reach the desired amount, seeking to optimize the tax benefit and liquidity. "To generate what is missing, two elements of user responsibility are offered, which are: how much they can contribute monthly and how much they can contribute once a year. By moving these variables, we offer you the financial products that make that possible. In this way , all the complexity of the product disappeared and we generated an offer," he explains. Raven's solution has been implemented in Spain since last year and has achieved a digital adherence of 97% in the age segment close to retirement. De la Torre considers that this solution is "100% exportable" and reveals that they are already in talks with other European countries, such as Portugal, France and the United Kingdom. After the experience, he emphasizes the importance of putting the focus back on the customer.
Reflecting on the path that Chile is taking in relation to pensions, he invites us to "look at the countries that have already had nationalized pension models for many years and where the private model appears as a solution to those same models, which is the one we have in Chile". Raven, the spin-off of the Virtus consultancy that is applying innovation to pensions Juan José de la Torre, CEO of Raven. With a project in Spain, the company is showing how to combine traditional models with newer approaches. FRONNY DI GIAMMARINO PRESENTED BY Raven innovation, the spin-off of the Virtus consultancy that is applying innovation to pensions.