PicPay Strategy Research

 

Establishment of a strategic UX Research hub focused on high-impact studies that directly informed business decisions. Partnered with Analytics, Strategy, and Customer Lifecycle teams.

 


The challenge

In order to o understand emerging behaviors and identify sustainable growth opportunities for PicPay, alongside a group of researchers and analysts, we built a dedicated research hub focused on uncovering strategic insights that could guide decision-making at the company level.


The Process

We started by identifying key gaps in our understanding of how people perceived and used PicPay in their financial lives. Our first steps involved listening — not just to users, but to stakeholders across teams who were making big bets on features, channels, and growth strategies. We knew research could be the bridge connecting user behavior, internal metrics, and business decisions.

Over the following months, we conducted a series of studies that mapped the full experience users had with PicPay. We explored how they related to the brand as a financial institution, what motivated high-value users to disengage, and how PicPay was performing across the entire customer journey. One question drove much of our work: “What would it take for PicPay to become someone's main financial partner?”

To find answers, we ran a variety of mixed-method research:

  • Analysis of user perception regarding banking relationships and financial life;

  • Mapping of the overall customer experience with PicPay, identifying pain points and engagement barriers;

  • Investigation into the drop-off of high-value users, aiming to understand why they stopped exhibiting premium behaviors;

  • Study on “financial mainness” — measuring how much PicPay was perceived as users’ primary financial institution;

  • Experience benchmarking using Bain data, compared with internal metrics;

  • Cross-analysis of qualitative research and database insights, in partnership with Analytics and CRM teams.

We uncovered behavioral shifts that reflected new financial habits and we also found long-term financial relationships strongly associated with loyalty and frequency of use. That insight helped us highlight where PicPay had the potential to grow: by offering meaningful financial products that could anchor users more deeply into the platform.

With that, we delivered research at a much faster pace — each study was shared as soon as it was completed. This approach allowed us to continuously feed multiple teams with new insights throughout the process.

Key findings and insights

  • Shifts in financial behavior: a growing trend of users closing accounts and canceling credit cards as a means to better control their finances;

  • Loyalty linked to financial products: users with long-term investments or loans showed a higher level of engagement and retention;

  • Opportunities for PicPay to stand out: products such as loans and investments were identified as key to positioning PicPay as a user’s main financial institution;

  • Market gaps: although competitors were strong, none stood out across the full end-to-end financial journey — each one excelled in only specific stages, opening space for PicPay to offer a more integrated solution;

  • Experience as a key differentiator: friction points and disengagement were strongly tied to perceived value and consistency in the user experience.

Business impact

  • Understanding of impact of former credit movements into the client LTV

  • Studies provided strategic inputs for roadmap definition, product prioritization, and positioning of financial solutions;

  • Informed adjustments in communication and value proposition strategies to better position PicPay as a primary bank.

Viviane Delvequiopicpay