TU PALABRA, GUARDADA
Kuska Pay · Financial Services
Challenge
Behaviour change — Low-income informal market vendors and buyers in Peru's highland cities (Cusco, Huancayo, Juliaca), predominantly Quechua-speaking adults aged 25-55, who operate entirely in cash and rely on oral agreements and personal trust networks for credit, and who deeply distrust banks and digital financial platforms as institutions built for 'others.'
Insight
In Andean market culture, informal credit already thrives — vendors extend credit to regular customers through a verbal system called 'fiado,' tracked only by memory and personal honor. This isn't a failure of financial literacy; it's a sophisticated trust economy. But when a vendor forgets, or a buyer denies the debt, the relationship — and the micro-economy around it — fractures. The problem isn't that people need to be taught about digital payments; it's that no digital tool has ever respected the oral, relational logic they already use.
Idea
Transform Kuska Pay's mobile wallet into 'the market's memory' — a tool that doesn't replace fiado culture but digitizes it, letting vendors record verbal credit promises via voice notes that both parties confirm, turning the phone into a witness that honors oral tradition rather than imposing written contracts.
Execution
Kuska Pay set up 'Memory Stalls' inside major highland open-air markets — actual market stands staffed by local vendors who had already adopted the app. These stalls staged live demonstrations where a vendor and a regular customer would recreate their real fiado exchange, recording the voice agreement on the app in Quechua. The recorded promise played back through a speaker so passersby could hear it — making the invisible web of market trust suddenly audible and public. A roaming 'memory wall' displayed printed QR codes linking to anonymized voice clips of real promises kept, creating a collective portrait of the market's honor. Local radio personalities narrated weekly segments featuring stories of debts remembered and relationships preserved, driving social media sharing through a WhatsApp-first strategy where vendors forwarded voice-promise clips to their customer networks.