![]() Ms Briggs believes that most people want to be financially responsible. Some offer “non-monetary incentives”, such as badges for hitting savings goals, similar to those offered by fitness trackers like FitBit and Strava.Īnother of the companies it has supported is working on “financial education games” where people use avatars to navigate modules on how to manage their money well. So far, Ms Briggs says their efforts have focused on areas from traditional budgeting tools to “gamification approaches”, such as incentivising clients to save by entering them into a sweepstake or offering a scratcher ticket. In May, the bank reaffirmed its commitment and pledged another $25m. Five years ago, JPMorgan launched a partnership with the Financial Health Network, so that it could work with early stage fintech companies which were designing solutions to help low-income populations. “Technology is really providing a huge opportunity to better meet needs,” says Ms Briggs. SmartDollar’s Brian Hamilton says the people most responsive to changes are “people who realise they make too much money to be broke”. In the US, SmartDollar, an employee benefits budgeting tool on the EveryDollar family, has found that its users save or pay off debt of $16,200 in their first year. “It’s the only category where we see this yo-yo effect where people start spending more again after two months,” says Mr Lukas. People spend less on groceries and fuel in the first few months, as they rein in domestic expenditure and switch to public transport, but then the amount ricochets back. In dining and drinking, app users typically reduce their spending by 17 per cent in the first month, and a further 14 per cent in the following six months. More encouragingly, there are signs of real savings in some of the key areas that the team have delved into. The team found that most people are “very optimistic” when they set their budgets, and the majority do not hit their targets. “It’s observing real behaviour,” says Mr Lukas. It also monitors cash withdrawals from any of the users’ bank accounts and assigns them to spending categories in line with typically cash spending patterns as described by the UK’s Office for National Statistics. The methodology tracks spending from accounts users link to the app. The research by Mr Lukas and Chuck Howard of the University of British Columbia in Canada takes a granular look at what clients achieve once they sign up. Some, including JPMorgan Chase, support fintechs which create apps to help people improve their financial wellbeing, or offer workplace counselling, such as Goldman Sachs’ Ayco. Big banks are in on the act too many embed budgeting tools within their apps. In the UK, Money Dashboard has reached 200,000 users and aims to increase that fivefold by 2024. San Francisco-headquartered Credit Karma, which offers free credit scores and financial health tools, claims more than 85m users. Mint, the trailblazer operating in the US and Canada, amassed 20m users in its first decade according to a 2016 market update. The apps typically promise customers visibility and insights into their financial behaviour and to coach them to make better decisions. It is one of many similar ventures to have sprung up on both sides of the Atlantic, alongside Mint, the original mass-market money management tool. Money Dashboard, also based in Edinburgh, is a single platform used to access bank accounts and a host of planning and budgeting tools.
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