German Fintech Company scales global growth with affiliate-driven MLM platform

Syncing with the realities of the German MLM financial sector

MLM companies in Germany operate in a highly regulatory environment with complex consumer protection standards and cultural skepticism toward multi-level marketing. In the financial services sector, compliance with BaFin regulations, GDPR mandates, and tax laws are deemed important especially when operating in a commission-based program. Businesses who prioritize loyalty and value creation will need to resort to a legally sound customer-centric approach.

Our client, a fintech company in Germany serves the financial sector with financial advice and consulting services. The company owns an ecommerce website with eLearning courses related to wealth management. It operates in an affiliate marketing model with affiliates earning commissions for purchases, referrals and renewals. The fintech business faced constraints in managing the affiliate MLM model with rising subscriptions, complex rank advancements, courses and commission payouts. They needed a platform that could efficiently manage operations with unyielding compliance and security standards.

Efficiently managing global diversity and growth in fintech MLM business with an affiliate MLM platform

The financial services company also served a network of learners outside Germany. Hence the affiliate MLM platform was expected to handle courses in multiple languages and manage payments in country-specific currency and pricing models. Epixel MLM Software was entrusted with the responsibility of developing a holistic platform that will help the company deliver its financial services with value and purpose.

We set up a team with our Global Product Development experts to design a platform that aligned with their global growth strategy.

Feature highlights

A set of innovative features set standards for growth and success within the fintech company and across its network.

eLearning course – Sales and renewals

Affiliates and customers can purchase courses or subscribe to annual packages. The course purchases will have country-specific pricing auto applied. The system automates and tracks the renewal process with prior notifications to the user.

Affiliate onboarding

The affiliate registration process includes training and KYC verification to ensure data compliance with Europe’s GDPR standards. At the completion of the registration process, affiliates will generate a replicated website and profile dashboard for the initial business setup.

Ecommerce ad replicated websites

The ecommerce store was designed to offer a great sales-purchase experience for affiliates and customers. Each affiliate will be assigned a replicated website during onboarding to help them start off with their outreach efforts instantly. These branded websites centralize data control of customers, affiliates and course purchases.

E-wallet management

The system supports two wallets—commission wallet and points wallet. Commissions of individual and downline sales are credited to the commission wallet. Affiliates can pay their downlines or make purchases and renewals using the funds in the wallet.

Points wallet is available to both affiliates and customers. Points earned for purchases, subscriptions, sales and referrals are credited to the points wallet. Customers and affiliates can redeem these points for course purchases, repurchases or transfer it to downline affiliates.

Rank management

The platform automatically tracks rank progress using criteria such as team sales, personal performance, and referral conversions. Affiliates can track their rank progress, view the next milestone and unlocked bonuses through the rank management system. The system creates growth roadmaps for affiliates that contribute to active participation.

Commission calculation and reporting

All affiliate commissions are calculated automatically based on the criteria fed in by the admin. The system can handle any type of multi-tier commissions, leadership bonuses, and performance incentives. Commission payments are transferred to affiliates on the payment method of their choice as set in their profiles.

The reporting feature records every transaction on commissions, bonuses, incentives and points to create downloadable reports. Affiliates can download reports on individual earnings or their teams’ for tracking their performance and planning growth.

Internationalization features

Operating in international markets outside Germany needed support for multiple languages, currencies and compliance with regional laws and regulations. The platform supports all global languages with English set as default. The payment processing system support all international currencies with real-time exchange rate integrations. This ensures pricing and payment accuracy for users from different regions.

Event management

The fintech company hosts events like eLearning Bootcamps, certification workshops, sales training, rank recognition ceremonies, etc. The system was required to organize and manage the event online. Features like ticket sales and distribution were handled by the system. Attendees who registered for the event will be notified prior to the event to ensure maximum participation.

Genealogy tree with achievement badges

The MLM genealogy tree feature allowed the affiliates to view the entire team structure in real-time. Details of affiliates and their downlines were displayed over the profiles. The genealogy profile also held badges and ranks of affiliates to create healthy competition and a culture of recognition within the network. The achievement badges were also made shareable on social media platforms from the system itself.

Security and compliance features

The system ensures foolproof security for data and transactions with high-end security features. The system adhered to secure coding practices together with 2FA-enabled login, granular access control, CSRF/XSS protections and encrypted databases for user and transaction data.

Measuring the growth with affiliate MLM platform

The platform was very well equipped to handle future needs in terms of rising affiliate and customer numbers. Among the major benefits it brought to the organization, affiliate engagement and network management ensured faster growth and improved team coordination.

The simple registration and replicated websites were expected to bring down the onboarding time by 50%.

Automated billing and wallet integrations were built to create a 72% improvement in renewal success rate.

Internationalization features smoothened business operations across six major regions to help the company achieve an estimated 78% growth in their affiliate base.

The progression in ranks was intended to hit 52% with transparent rank advancement tracking and structured incentives.

Automation of the commission payout process was developed to bring forth 97% accuracy in real-time payouts and 61% reduction in payout-related support tickets.

The e-wallet feature was set to contribute to a 60% higher engagement rate among customers and affiliates through activity-based gamification.

The usage of affiliate dashboards was expected to see an increase of 82% underlining the effectiveness of self-review tools and performance insights.

Resolving the challenges in the fintech MLM business

The complex regulations governing the industry were not an easy challenge to deal with. Along with it came the numerous localization requirements across different markets. Financial reporting and data security only added to the complexity calling out the need for a system that can keep the business secure and compliant.

Regional course pricing

Challenges in logic and compliance defined the pricing of courses as per the region of operation. A rule-based pricing system pulled out real-time currency exchange rates, applied tax depending on regional policies and applied pricing based on location data.

Drop-offs during onboarding

Users with low technical expertise struggled with understanding the affiliate model and registration process. The easy-to-follow onboarding with KYC process, replicated website setup and e-wallet tutorials helped the company reduce drop-offs during onboarding.

Adapting to the variations in the compensation structure

Different regions operated with different compensation structures. Commissions, bonuses and incentives differed. This made it difficult to compute payouts across a global network of affiliates. To counter the challenge, the commission management system was built with a rule-based commission engine that lets admins preset compensation criteria for each location or modify it when necessary.

Fulfilling the need for member recognition

The company saw an increase in the number of affiliate drop-offs in the absence of a proper member recognition system. The performance of the members was not directly tied to sales metrics nor did they receive recognition for their loyal efforts. The gamified recognition system with badges, leaderboards and social media shareable tools enhanced motivation and engagement across the affiliate network.

Expected Results

Increase in number of affiliates

78%

Reduced onboarding time

50%

Reduction in onboarding drop-offs

43%

Increase in annual course renewals

72%

Increase in commission payout accuracy

98%

Reduction in payout-related support tickets

61%

Increase in wallet-based transactions

89%

Rank advancement improvement

52%

System uptime

99.9%