Can financial education change behaviour? Student-fintech project finds some answers

When New Zealand-based fintech lender, Money Sweetspot, partnered with the Business School's Master of Applied Finance industry project, the question driving the collaboration was both simple and deeply complex: does financial education actually change outcomes, or does it just increase knowledge?

"Honestly, I was curious. Lots of organisations invest in financial education because it feels like the right thing to do. But proving whether it leads to better financial decisions, better debt repayment behaviour or improved financial wellbeing is much harder," says Sasha Lockley, CEO of Money Sweetspot.

What followed was a collaboration that challenged students to analyse real customer data while helping Money Sweetspot explore a question with no easy answer.

At the heart of the work was a shift in perspective.

"Debt isn't usually a knowledge problem. Most people already know they should save more, borrow less or pay things on time. The real challenge is behaviour, motivation, confidence and life circumstances – to make lasting financial progress," Lockley says.

Instead of focusing purely on financial metrics, the students investigated how customers' personal stories could provide deeper insights into financial behaviour and wellbeing.

The collaboration was led by MAppFin international students Nhatthaphon "Oh" Sri-ubon from Thailand, Xiaoran Chen from China, and Syeda Mahnaaz Jabeen from India. Bringing together interests in data analytics, economics, financial inclusion, engineering and machine learning, the team combined complementary strengths to tackle a complex challenge at the intersection of finance, technology and human behaviour.

Throughout the project, they worked closely with the industry partner Money Sweetspot and received regular guidance from their supervisor, Dr Pengfei Liu and PhD candidate Mike Lu, while taking responsibility for shaping and delivering the analysis. For Mahnaaz, who has a background in economics and a strong interest in financial systems and digital financial inclusion, the collaboration was a natural fit.

"Money Sweetspot works with individuals who are looking to improve their financial situation through debt consolidation, so understanding customers' stories is important for providing effective support," she reflects.

The students set out to transform those personal accounts into meaningful data. Turning applicants' unstructured narratives about loan reasons and post-approval goals into meaningful analysis required both technical depth and creative problem-solving.

"Our goal was to turn these words into quantifiable data using natural language processing (NLP) and analyse the relationship between the stories and repayment ability," says Xiaoran, who pursued a MAppFin to strengthen her practical data and analytical skills and is now working in an early-career finance role.

To achieve this, the students combined natural language processing, machine learning and econometric analysis to transform customer narratives into measurable indicators of financial behaviour. Within the collaboration, Xiaoran led the development of a change score, Mahnaaz analysed repayment patterns across customer groups, and Oh applied machine learning techniques to uncover behavioural insights from customer stories.

"The project aimed to provide insights that could help Money Sweetspot better understand its customer base and support customers more effectively throughout their loan journey," Mahnaaz says.

Oh says the analysis helped reveal the human side of financial decision-making. "This project enables Money Sweetspot to better understand the 'story element' behind customer behaviour and link it to measurable financial outcomes," he says.

A defining feature of the experience was its unpredictability, reflecting the realities of industry work.

"At first, I expected that the objectives would remain fixed throughout," Mahnaaz says. "But as we explored the data and engaged further with the client, certain aspects of the project became more relevant than others. I realised that real projects are not linear, and requirements often evolve."

"The project gave us a chance to do things independently," Xiaoran says. "It was the first time I did a whole project with a real company without clear guidance or a framework from the teachers."

Oh, who has a background in engineering and analytics in the oil and gas industry, said the most challenging aspect of the work had been working in unfamiliar areas of finance and machine learning. By teaching himself these topics, he gained the confidence to navigate uncertainty.

"I really enjoyed seeing how my knowledge could create a real impact on a business. Our work showed that we were able to turn academic knowledge into practical, real-world business impact," he says.

Pengfei was impressed by the students' remarkable adaptability. "The project was quite complex because it required natural language processing to conduct the analysis. The team did a great job in learning and implementing advanced analysis," he says. 

For Money Sweetspot, the collaboration offered a fresh way of thinking about long-standing challenges beyond technical outputs.

"What they brought was independent thinking," says CEO Sasha Lockley. "The students allowed us to step back and examine some of those assumptions through a research lens. Most importantly, they tackled a question that doesn't have an obvious answer."

While the research did not result in a single definitive answer, it highlighted the complexity of financial wellbeing and the factors shaping outcomes. It did, however, provide a more definitive finding that financial education can help reduce arrears. It also challenged the assumption that borrowers motivated by family circumstances might be expected to be more committed to repayment. In reality, the project showed the opposite in some cases, with these motivations associated with lower loan performance. This insight reflects one of the complexities of human behaviour, where family obligations and roles can continue to shape financial decisions, even when individuals are motivated to move forward.

By combining new perspectives with academic insight, the team helped expand the organisation's understanding of meaningful financial outcomes and how to measure them. Lockley says the work reinforced the importance of focusing on outcomes, not just activity, as Money Sweetspot continues to design products, wellbeing programmes and customer experiences.

"I was reminded how powerful it can be when academic research meets real-world experience," she says.

"Our students will have the confidence to tackle very complicated issues. I think they are well prepared for their future careers," says Pengfei.

For students, this represents the true value of the MAppFin industry project: combining technical skill with human insight to solve meaningful problems.