Embedding Customer Experience to Deliver Purpose and Performance at IPF

Embedding Customer Experience to Deliver Purpose and Performance at International Personal Finance (IPF)

The Challenge

International Personal Finance (IPF/Provident) is a purpose-led global financial services provider, serving millions with affordable credit and insurance products. With a unique agent-delivered model that fosters trust and financial inclusion, IPF faced a challenge: how to maintain the strength of personal relationships while accelerating digital adoption and embedding customer-centricity across the business.

With competitors increasingly shifting to digital-only models, IPF recognised that balancing technology with human empathy would be its competitive edge; a customer-focused approach drives improved business performance, attracts more customers, improves customer retention and satisfaction, and enhances the brand’s reputation.

IPF wanted to establish a customer experience programme designed to encourage everyone at IPF to always put the customer first. However, it was recognised that this would only be possible if there was an in-depth understanding of the customers’ needs and expectations at every step of the journey.

The Solution

Over four years, CGA have partnered with IPF to embed a customer experience strategy anchored in IPF’s purpose: “Building a Better World Through Financial Inclusion.”

We helped IPF understand that customers need to feel in control; they want to be treated with respect, transparency, and dignity, and not as a case determined by risk assessment. Gábor Fülöp, Marketing Director at Provident (the name under which IPF markets its home loans in Hungary and other countries) believes this is why CGA’s help has been so useful – through CGA’s understanding of the customer experience, IPF is able to focus its energy on the most important touchpoints in the customer journey.

Using the learnings, we have delivered a full customer transformation programme in Hungary, Romania, Poland, the Czech Republic and Mexico, which has been subsequently extended across IPFD, its global digital business. We also helped IPF develop a Customer Strategy and Customer Promise embedding customer centricity at the heart of the business purpose.

Key initiatives included:

• Heartbeat Framework: Our end-to-end customer journey mapping framework rolled out across Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Mexico (2021–22), and later expanded to digital businesses in Australia, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania (2023–24).
• Think Customer Programme: Embedding customer empathy into daily behaviours through clear Customer Promises, a Customer Strategy and voice-of-the-customer dashboard.
• Agent focus: Extending Heartbeat to customer representatives to improve experience, reduce churn, and strengthen talent attraction.

Consequently, IPF have been able to introduce significant improvements in the customer experience, including,

• Digital acceleration with human touch: AI chatbots reduced loan application times from 24 hours to 5 minutes, while field representatives preserved empathy and trust.
• Customer-led risk discipline: Affordability scoring, collections-linked remuneration, and “low-and-grow” limits balanced inclusion with sustainability.
• Cross-market learning: Local innovations, such as customer service standards developed in Romania, were scaled globally.
• Product and channel diversification: credit lines, hybrid loans, and retail partner instalment finance expanded customer choice and share of spend.

The Results

Customer Experience Outcomes:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) rose from +67 (2021) to +77 (2024).
• Customer satisfaction reached 91% in 2023–24.
• Complaints contained at 4% of active customers, with resolution in under 8 days.
• Silver medals in Personal Customer Service and Call Centre categories.

Financial Performance (2021–2024):

• 24% growth in lending
• 26% increase in profit before tax
• 43% growth in dividend per share since 2021, supported by strong returns (RoRE 15–20%).
• Cost-income ratio in European home credit improved from 57% to 50% through digitisation.

Strategic Impact:

• Customer experience embedded into Board decision-making and performance management.
• IPF positioned as a leading purpose-driven lender, balancing digital innovation with trusted, local human relationships.
• Purpose delivered: mobile wallet adoption doubled; new digital services launched in underserved markets.

Conclusion

By embedding customer experience at the heart of its operations, IPF has demonstrated that purpose and performance go hand in hand. The Think Customer programme and Heartbeat framework, anchored in customer insight, have driven measurable improvements in satisfaction, loyalty, and business results, while staying true to IPF’s mission of financial inclusion.

CGA continues to partner with IPF to scale these capabilities across geographies and channels, supporting sustainable growth, employee engagement, and customer trust.