Why Bankin’ bet on community About Bankin’ Bankin’ is a top European fintech app helping millions of users manage their finances with clarity and control. In a competitive landscape where financial apps often struggle to retain users after the first weeks, Bankin’ wanted to reinforce daily engagement and long-term retention. 11M+ downloads 1 million+ bank accounts connected ‍ Their business challenge Despite strong acquisition, engagement was plateauing. The product team identified a powerful untapped lever: enabling users to connect, share experiences, and learn from each other inside the app. The goal? Make money management more human, social, and motivating. Bankin’s North Star KPI is user retention. The key question: could a built-in community drive enough of a retention boost to be ROI-positive — without triggering a spike in support tickets or moderation overhead? ‍ “We needed to transform our app - a personal finance tool - into a daily companion users would want to come back to. The community helps us do exactly that." — Guillaume Sarthoulet, CEO, Bankin’ ‍ ‍ How Bankin’ launched its in-app community Bankin’ integrated Octopus Community SDK into its mobile app, creating a dynamic social hub, accessible directly from the homepage. Users could scroll, post, comment, and engage — all natively. Octopus handles everything from community frontend & backend to content moderation, community animation, and data insights. “I handled the SDK integration as well as the updates. I found the integration very easy, it took me between half a day and one full day. The longest part was passing the authentication token, which is generated on the back end and doesn’t depend on Octopus SDK.” — Jason Baracassa, Lead Dev iOS, Bankin’ ‍ To measure the precise impact of community on key app metrics, Bankin’ ran a live A/B test: 70% of users had access to the community, while 30% formed the control group. The iOS rollout came first — followed by Android a few weeks after, once early results proved promising. ‍ ‍Integrated features: Push notifications Notification badge on homepage Custom A/B test events tracking “The documentation was clear, and the Octopus team was always very responsive when we had questions. It felt more like working with a partner than just plugging in an SDK.” — Sihem Messaoui, Lead Dev Android, Bankin’ ‍ ‍ What the community made possible Custom moderation to stay compliant Bankin’ needed to filter out referral codes, loan promotions, and other sensitive content to stay compliant with financial regulations. Octopus’s flexible moderation rules allowed Bankin’ to keep the feed clean and trustworthy, without manual overhead. ‍ Crisis response: reducing support volume When a partner issue triggered a spike in support requests, the team used the community strategically: pinning a clear, informative post at the top of the feed for one month. This simple move drastically reduced related posts and deflected hundreds of support tickets. ‍ Community notifications = traffic boost Bankin’ sends weekly notifications to spotlight trending discussions or featured posts. The impact is immediate: +122% in community views, a 3× increase in comments on highlighted content, and a powerful way to re-engage dormant users ‍ Turning user voice into product impact The community gave users a public channel to surface pain points, ideas, and frustrations. Some issues that previously went unprioritized internally gained momentum thanks to community visibility. When dozens of users shared the same frustration, it created alignment across product, marketing, and leadership. Without knowing it, users became internal influencers. ‍ Proactive support, at scale Beyond deflecting tickets, the community became a place where users could help each other, share advice, and support newcomers — reducing pressure on the support team and creating a more resilient ecosystem. ‍ ‍ Cross-channel promotion for a fast start To drive adoption, Bankin’ promoted the community via in-app banners and Instagram. These campaigns created a strong boost in visits and helped build early network effects. ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ ‍ Community results +34,5% retention uplift for community users after 1 month 47% of Bankin’ users have visited the community Community users open Bankin’ app 2x more than the others. “Octopus turned our users into a community - and our community into a retention engine. The community is now one of our core business levers and communication channel. It’s not a ‘nice-to-have’; it’s ROI-positive.” — Elsa Taourel, CPO & CMO, Bankin’ ‍