"Keep The Change"

The "Keep the Change" program grew out of a research project that sought to understand how Bank of America could improve service to baby-boomer women with children. As the study demonstrated, these consumers had strong concerns about money, but faced significant obstacles to saving that could be overcome with a well-designed program. The research team arrived at a solution that uses existing habits to reinforce the association of money and banking in consumers' minds and encourages them to save. Ultimately dubbed "Keep the Change," the service rounds up purchases made with a Bank of America Visa debit card to the nearest dollar and transfers the difference to a savings account. The program attracted 2.5 million customers in less than one year to open more than 700,000 new checking accounts and one million new savings accounts. With a 95 percent retention rate, "Keep the Change" helps hundreds of thousands of customers build long term savings while ensuring a loyal customer base for Bank of America. "'Keep the Change' is an example of design used to drive social change. It builds opportunities and encourages active participation. This is service design at its best and it makes a true difference!" -- Annette Schömmel, CEO, arthesia AG "It's wonderful to see design employed to encourage positive changes in human behavior. In this case, Bank of America used design to study, map, understand and ultimately inspire people to save." - Keith Yamashita, Chairman, Stone Yamashita Partners

DESIGN
IDEO

CONTACT
Whitney Mortimer, IDEO
650.289.3462
whitney@ideo.com