Finance Management and edutainment

Only 8% millennials have a broad knowledge of finance management and 25% doesn't save any money regularly but spend whatever they have on impulses. There is a huge gap to fill when it comes to personal finance management education in millennials.

This project was conceptualised during and was a winner of a 30-hour hackathon in Milan organised by AGOS.

82% of Millennials uses smartphones for mobile banking and shopping. 8% have broad knowledge about personal financial management and 25% doesn't save any money but spend everything they have.

The challenge

Making boring into fun

When it comes to PFM educations, everyone knows what they should be doing, but seldom act on it and listening to someone tell them the same thing, again and again, seems boring to listen. Making this education in fun was out the main challenge. So we went on to explore a solution that

...helps save more money,
..make the process fun,
..make them see the results and motivate them to maintain the habit,
...helping Agos make money in the process.

With our limited timeframe to come up with the concept and prototype it at the same time was difficult, but we managed to do it through incredible teamwork.

Concept

Solution

Agos Smart Saving is an edutainment solution using which you can save money every time you spend. All you have to do is connect your credit or debit card with your account and put in how much you want to save every month. If you have no idea how much, don't worry the app will suggest to you how much you can save based on your spending patterns.

Usecase

Apps like Qapital and Chime are already heavily used in the US. What they do is every time you spend money using the debit card, they will round off the number and transfer the remaining amount to your savings accounts.

What this means is, if I buy online a book for 5.45 Euros, which I do a I lot must say. My card will be charged 6 Euros. The bookshop will receive 5.45 Euros and the remaining 0.55 Euros will be transferred to my savings account.

What we proposed was kind of similar. But rather than rounding off every spent. The service analyses your spending patterns, incomes patterns to suggest you how much you can save each month. You can set goals to save money for the best next thing you want to buy and the app will assist you to save that amount in given time.

Say I want to get an iPad in next 6 months. I am completing my Masters and I am sure I will sketch more after this degree, so I really need it. So I open the app, put in the price of iPad my time limit which in this case is 6 months. The app will tell me if I want to achieve this goal in 6 months, I should save at least 12% of my income every month.

So after I activate the saving mode, the app will analyse whenever I spend. 12% of every dollar I spend will be saved in my blocked account. If I spend more than I should in one month, it’s still okay since that means that I have also saved more than usual.

What is in it for Agos, Agos is the credit aggregator for most of Italian banks. So they are the ones who pays for you in full when you take things on instalment and when you pay back that money, you are not paying the I-phone store you brought it from but to the Agos. They earn by lending money.

So for Agos we added in a feature where people can opt to buy the product early on rather than waiting for next 4 months to get the iPad. Having the app data will ensure Agos that the user is able to save needed money and thus pay them back without any defaulter and for users, it is easy to save.

App mockup screens from our deliverables