Unicaja’s Digital Piggy Banks: The Micro-Savings Revolution

This initiative responds to the growing need to promote healthy financial habits, especially among younger generations. With this solution, Unicaja makes savings planning easier while reinforcing its commitment to proximity banking and digital transformation.

Unicaja’s commitment to financial education

Founded in 2011, Unicaja is currently the second-best performing bank in the Ibex 35 (Spain’s main stock market index). It holds a strong position as a key financial institution across six autonomous communities (its home regions: Andalusia, Asturias, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Castilla y León, and Extremadura), with a focus on proximity banking.

Unicaja’s universal and sustainable banking model, combined with its social awareness and innovation-driven approach, makes it a benchmark in the Spanish market. The bank seeks to strengthen its growth with the support of technological partners capable of taking the customer experience to the next level. This strategy is particularly focused on enhancing financial education.

This high-level technical solution offers fully customizable configurations of various micro-services. The Smart Piggy Bank functions as a modular system, seamlessly integrating into Unicaja Banco’s infrastructure.

According to the latest PISA report, four in ten students in Spain struggle to interpret basic financial concepts, such as understanding an invoice or a payslip. This educational gap, compounded by misinformation on social media, highlights the urgent need for traditional banking to act as a trusted financial advisor.

In this context, technology becomes a key ally in improving the financial well-being of the population, equipping individuals with the knowledge and basic skills needed to make better economic decisions.

What is Micro-Savings?

Micro-savings is a concept based on automating small contributions, enabling customers to save effortlessly through personalised rules. Its success lies in its ability to create sustainable long-term financial habits.

By leveraging automation and advanced analysis of transactional data, banks can integrate micro-savings modules into their digital platforms. Using principles of behavioural finance, they help customers overcome psychological and social barriers that prevent them from making better financial decisions.

Benefits of Micro-Savings:

• Facilitates effortless savings automation.
• Allows the configuration of personalized financial goals.
• Promotes financial empowerment through technology.
• Provides continuous tracking to keep users motivated.

Unicaja and Coinscrap Finance’s innovative solution

Digital piggy banks for personalised and automatic savings

Unicaja and Coinscrap Finance have developed a solution that perfectly aligns with both users’ needs and the bank’s digital strategy, allowing customers to take control of their finances.

By setting concrete goals —customizable with images, names, timeframes, and more— users are encouraged to start their savings journey. The bank supports them every step of the way, offering various automatic saving rules, including:

• Scheduled contributions, adjustable to the desired frequency.
• A percentage of salary, pension, or benefits allocated to savings.
• Rounding up purchases, adding the difference to the piggy bank.
• Savings triggered by specific events, such as goals scored by a favourite team.
• The option to share achievements with family and friends.

Each user can manage up to five piggy banks simultaneously, with full flexibility to make additional contributions at any time to speed up their goals. Savings are always accessible, allowing withdrawals whenever needed. Having financial control all in one place simplifies decision-making.

Unicaja understands that every banking customer is unique

Both customers using the app and the bank itself can identify areas for improvement and opportunities to grow each user’s savings pot. Hyper-personalising the user experience is essential, which is why Unicaja offers tailored recommendations and advice based on each individual’s financial situation.

Receiving a savings recommendation at the start of a new school year is very different from getting one in March, when many have recovered from the January financial crunch. Similarly, understanding a customer’s profile helps the bank guide their savings towards the best options —be it pension plans, investment vehicles, or other products— to maximize their financial benefits.

Advanced technology and scalability

Thanks to its cloud-based architecture, this solution allows Unicaja to offer a highly scalable service, adaptable to future market needs. Its modular design also ensures that the tool evolves in line with customer preferences.

Optimising resource management, minimising response times, and increasing agility in deployments are key goals in every development. Thanks to the collaboration between Unicaja and Coinscrap Finance, the banking sector is making significant strides in digital transformation, providing tools that enable better financial planning.

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