Credit card consumption in the portuguese market

Abstract

This dissertation is a project developed with the company Unicre, that is a Portuguese credit union, with the purpose of understanding the behaviours and choices of Portuguese customers regarding credit cards and provide significant insights about who are its potential clients and how to target them. In this sense, an online survey was developed and shared in order to collect the data needed that was then analysed through a hypothesis testing and a cluster analysis. The results revealed that debit cards are the preferred payment choice of Portuguese that fear the usage of credit cards. When looking for a credit card, customers go to their current banks and annuity appears as the most valuable card attribute for them. Three clusters were built, and considering the profitability level, Outliers are the recommended target to Unicre, that attribute a great importance to culture, travelling and nature. Based on these findings, eleven recommendations have been proposed such as launch a pre-paid card that works like a debit card, develop an advertisement campaign focusing on the absence of annuity in Unicre’s credit cards, change customers’ perceptions by building an informal relationship based on trust using the social media to clarify doubts and to provide advices to customers, and to create partnerships with companies such as booking, ticket-line and travel agencies to attract Outliers by offering benefits that meet their most valuable life experiences.

Date of Award	25 Jan 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Omar El Nayal (Supervisor) & Rute Xavier (Co-Supervisor)