Ugami shakes up the fintech industry with Ugipoints – a loyalty program dedicated to gamers

Project summary

Ugami is a fintech company based in the United States that aims to revolutionize the market through a gamified loyalty program related to debit cards for gamers. The team behind Ugami consists of technology entrepreneurs, financial experts, and gamers committed to developing cutting-edge financial solutions.

Since Ugami targets niche audiences such as digital natives, they were looking for a way to enrich their financial services with an engaging and mobile-first loyalty program that would be a real breakthrough in their industry. 

Here's how they used Open Loyalty to bring gamification to financial services and create a solution that attracts younger audiences who have come to expect highly personalized and compelling brand experiences.

Key results

• Leading fintech product for gamers extended with an engaging loyalty program, recognized as the first debit card for gamers in the US, as per App Store downloads.
• Ugipoints loyalty program enjoyed by the gaming community, built on top of various loyalty mechanics such as points, reward catalogs, and gamification mechanics in form of milestones, achievements and daily spin-to-wins.  
• Reported 265,000 gamers on the waitlist when Ugami launched the very first Ugami Debit Card along with their app in June 2022.

"As a company made up of gamers and fintech professionals, we are extremely excited to see the incredible interest in Ugami from the gaming community. Our mission is to create a safe and secure banking product where gamers can manage their finances and have fun at the same time."

Hector Hulian
Founder & CEO of Ugami

The challenge

Gamers are fully aware that gaming can be financially expensive, and it may be difficult for some to cover these costs. For example, newer games often require potent graphic processing units (GPUs) and other gaming equipment, all of which can be pretty pricey. Unfortunately, its lack can negatively affect the overall gaming experience. Gamers also need credit products that reward them for what they care about most. 

Ugami decided to focus exclusively on the gaming community having seen its untapped potential and the opportunity to offer real value for gamers. Fortune Business Insights indicates that the global gaming market was valued at $188.73 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $307.19 billion by 2029. What's more, the global video game market is concentrated in ten countries (85% of the total number), particularly China and the US.

Ugami wanted to disrupt traditional financial services by extending their product with a multi-merchant loyalty program for gamers. In addition, the company's founders, Hector Hulian and Andres Caldera, boasted extensive experience in finance having previously worked with Visa and other start-ups. This background allowed them to identify a target group with real purchasing potential, namely professional gamers and young passionate about gaming and highly committed to this form of entertainment.

That's why the founders first came up with the idea of the Ugami Debit Card — currently one of the top debit cards for gamers, where users pay for everything with the Ugami Card to get amazing rewards. However, the next step was to go to the extra mile — creating a loyalty scheme that would be fun and enjoyable for anyone who is a true gamer.

After designing a custom loyalty program strategy, Ugami turned to Open Loyalty - seeking a loyalty software provider that met their business requirements and fit into the modern technology stack. Open Loyalty fulfilled these needs perfectly, and a successful partnership was sparked.

The solution

Open Loyalty was used as the engine for Ugami's entire loyalty scheme and connected seamlessly with its existing systems. As such, the final product, namely Ugami's loyalty engine became a key differentiator in the financial services market and a key strategic element in terms of Ugami's overall value proposition for their target customers, i.e. gamers.

Thanks to the joint efforts of Open Loyalty and Ugami, the fintech innovator's Ugami Debit Cards have perfectly met the needs of gamers and, unsurprisingly, reached the milestone of being the very first debit card for gamers in the United States, as per downloads from the App Store. To celebrate the initial success, the company organized daily GPU Giveaway Days and up to 50% discounts selected GPUs. Lucky ones who happened to catch on got to celebrate together!

To learn more about how Ugami has expanded its loyalty value proposition; what mechanics they successfully introduced to its growing user base, and what the most pivotal results of their work with Open Loyalty were, click on the button below to view the full case study.