Fintech Friday: ff.next – cultivating financial awareness among the next generation
02/10/2020
Perspective
Efma's Boris Plantier spoke with Ivan Muck, Co-founder and CEO of the company on a mission to educate youth about smart financial management.
What led to the creation of ff.next?
Not a single act or event, but several different impulses and experiences led to the foundation of ff.next. Two of our founders worked at a global management consulting firm as fintech analysts, where they got to know the fascinating world of fintechs. They recognized that youth banking as such is a poorly covered segment and that there are very few design-driven retail banking solutions on the market.
At the same time, several of our colleagues volunteered in a non-profit organization aimed at preparing high-school students for their final exams. They had seen how severe the lack of financial consciousness amongst youngsters was and that this issue originated from the deficiencies of the educational system.
Also, 400,000 Hungarian families were affected by the global financial crisis and foreign currency loan crisis in Hungary in which many of our families were involved. We felt the urge to make a difference on all these terrains by founding our own company focusing on the financial education of youngsters and their families.
We believe that taking control over your finances is a lifetime of work and starting to learn about financial literacy and how to manage your money is vital from a young age. In order to increase the financial consciousness of youngsters they must be involved in financial services early on, which require digital solutions, interfaces and in the end, applications which can be used easily and intuitively.
We are revolutionizing financial education and providing the appropriate tools, platforms and eventually the right customer experience to younger customers by helping financial institutions serve their true needs.
The story of our new brand name, ff.next is an exciting story too. We have come a long way since Family Finances was founded in 2017; since then we’ve helped several financial innovators - over five banks and 10 fintechs - roll out truly design-driven fintech solutions.
As we celebrated our 3rd birthday back in May, we felt that we had outgrown our original name and branding. We clearly shifted from focusing solely on family and youth banking and broadened our scope to design-driven banking, along with end-to-end digital product development services.
This is the reason why we decided to stick to the beloved legacy of FF, while also starting the NEXT chapter of our startup's story. As we continue our journey as ff.next we look very much forward to seeing what exciting projects, new partners, and inspiring colleagues our future brings!
Could you present ff.next's offer?
ff.next offers design-driven mobile banking solutions for financial innovators with a special focus on younger customers, including off-the-shelf, boxed solutions that are all easy-to-customize, design-driven and white-label as well as an end-to-end service from UX research, through UX/UI design to implementation. These solutions enable banks and fintech companies to engage younger generations, Millennials & GenZ customers with design-oriented digital interfaces.
The company has two flagship products called Flint and RocketMoney.
Flint is a mobile-first, end-to-end remote lending and onboarding solution, which is capable of executing credit scoring through a mobile platform, therefore loan application can take only 20 minutes. The solution uses public registers, therefore most of the user data is automatically filled in and its cleanliness is also guaranteed.
RocketMoney is a family banking solution we offer together with GoSave, a Californian fintech startup. Together, we cover the whole youth banking lifecycle by serving the 6-12 years old segment with a next generation piggy bank and the 12-18 years old group with an allowance management application helping youngsters manage, save and also make money in a smart way. Our vision is to conquer the youth banking space with GoSave and provide financial innovators with the right solutions to increase financial consciousness and literacy.
Regarding our end-to-end services, we have our own battle-tested process to help our clients on the way from the first idea to the last line of code.
First, we start with co-ideation, during which we understand our clients’, end users’ and every stakeholders’ needs. After understanding all expectations, we can fix the concept and give an estimation of the time and materials needed. We are capable of providing detailed functional specifications and detailed wireframes to help our clients see the outlines of the final product. We create high-fidelity prototypes, so they look and feel like actually developed applications. This way we can prepare a feasible product by using the fewest resources possible. This prototype is capable of executing lifelike testing, monitoring even the slightest customer interactions. We are dedicated to doing UI-heavy development, so each and every member of our team is an expert in developing UI-heavy mobile applications, since the compromise-free design-heavy frontend forms the center of our projects. This way the final product will look exactly like the previously validated and tested prototype.
What's coming next for ff.next?
Fortunately – despite COVID-19 – our operations remained stable and we can ensure our continuous revenues by providing our end-to-end services for our partners. Furthermore, our mobile-first, end-to-end remote lending and onboarding solution, Flint, has some momentum due to the global pandemic too.
This app can be easily and smoothly integrated into the infrastructure of financial institutions. Banks are playing a critical role in the crisis as systemic stabilizers for customers, employees, and for their economies at large. They need to enhance their current digital offerings, identifying key functionalities that can be improved quickly. From a credit perspective, banks should identify the most affected sectors and customers to see how they can be most supportive to their clients and communities. Some are already considering availability of credit, thus creating positive effect on customer relationships. According to McKinsey & Company, 74% of US workers said they are living pay check to pay check, while 58% of workers are paid by the hour. For them, financial impact of Covid-19 and lack of employment will be particularly difficult. Banks are being inundated with requests for credit from new, non-registered customers and they need to make hundreds of urgent credit decisions. Digital processes are crucial throughout the pandemic: digital identity and verification are the only way to open new accounts and digital credit scoring is the only way to lend. Our solution, Flint, can help solve all these newly emerging issues. We feel that we can help banks which are struggling to digitalize, governments which are not possessing the right tools to help their communities and end users who want to apply for loans safely and easily.
In the longer term, we are also focusing on RocketMoney, our youth and family banking solution too. We are continuously having talks about the customization of our youth banking offer with international financial institutions and we also have other large scale plans regarding this state-of-the-art product. Together with our partner, GoSave, our joint goal is to become the leading youth and family banking solution provider in Europe and provide thousands of parents and children with a feasible alternative to manage and learn about finances together!
Our ultimate goal is to become the number one supplier to banks and fintech startups, and with our design-driven products aimed at young people, we can meet Gen Z and Millennial needs and financial innovators’ expectations to the maximum.
Not a single act or event, but several different impulses and experiences led to the foundation of ff.next. Two of our founders worked at a global management consulting firm as fintech analysts, where they got to know the fascinating world of fintechs. They recognized that youth banking as such is a poorly covered segment and that there are very few design-driven retail banking solutions on the market.
At the same time, several of our colleagues volunteered in a non-profit organization aimed at preparing high-school students for their final exams. They had seen how severe the lack of financial consciousness amongst youngsters was and that this issue originated from the deficiencies of the educational system.
Also, 400,000 Hungarian families were affected by the global financial crisis and foreign currency loan crisis in Hungary in which many of our families were involved. We felt the urge to make a difference on all these terrains by founding our own company focusing on the financial education of youngsters and their families.
We believe that taking control over your finances is a lifetime of work and starting to learn about financial literacy and how to manage your money is vital from a young age. In order to increase the financial consciousness of youngsters they must be involved in financial services early on, which require digital solutions, interfaces and in the end, applications which can be used easily and intuitively.
We are revolutionizing financial education and providing the appropriate tools, platforms and eventually the right customer experience to younger customers by helping financial institutions serve their true needs.
The story of our new brand name, ff.next is an exciting story too. We have come a long way since Family Finances was founded in 2017; since then we’ve helped several financial innovators - over five banks and 10 fintechs - roll out truly design-driven fintech solutions.
As we celebrated our 3rd birthday back in May, we felt that we had outgrown our original name and branding. We clearly shifted from focusing solely on family and youth banking and broadened our scope to design-driven banking, along with end-to-end digital product development services.
This is the reason why we decided to stick to the beloved legacy of FF, while also starting the NEXT chapter of our startup's story. As we continue our journey as ff.next we look very much forward to seeing what exciting projects, new partners, and inspiring colleagues our future brings!
Could you present ff.next's offer?
ff.next offers design-driven mobile banking solutions for financial innovators with a special focus on younger customers, including off-the-shelf, boxed solutions that are all easy-to-customize, design-driven and white-label as well as an end-to-end service from UX research, through UX/UI design to implementation. These solutions enable banks and fintech companies to engage younger generations, Millennials & GenZ customers with design-oriented digital interfaces.
The company has two flagship products called Flint and RocketMoney.
Flint is a mobile-first, end-to-end remote lending and onboarding solution, which is capable of executing credit scoring through a mobile platform, therefore loan application can take only 20 minutes. The solution uses public registers, therefore most of the user data is automatically filled in and its cleanliness is also guaranteed.
RocketMoney is a family banking solution we offer together with GoSave, a Californian fintech startup. Together, we cover the whole youth banking lifecycle by serving the 6-12 years old segment with a next generation piggy bank and the 12-18 years old group with an allowance management application helping youngsters manage, save and also make money in a smart way. Our vision is to conquer the youth banking space with GoSave and provide financial innovators with the right solutions to increase financial consciousness and literacy.
Regarding our end-to-end services, we have our own battle-tested process to help our clients on the way from the first idea to the last line of code.
First, we start with co-ideation, during which we understand our clients’, end users’ and every stakeholders’ needs. After understanding all expectations, we can fix the concept and give an estimation of the time and materials needed. We are capable of providing detailed functional specifications and detailed wireframes to help our clients see the outlines of the final product. We create high-fidelity prototypes, so they look and feel like actually developed applications. This way we can prepare a feasible product by using the fewest resources possible. This prototype is capable of executing lifelike testing, monitoring even the slightest customer interactions. We are dedicated to doing UI-heavy development, so each and every member of our team is an expert in developing UI-heavy mobile applications, since the compromise-free design-heavy frontend forms the center of our projects. This way the final product will look exactly like the previously validated and tested prototype.
What's coming next for ff.next?
Fortunately – despite COVID-19 – our operations remained stable and we can ensure our continuous revenues by providing our end-to-end services for our partners. Furthermore, our mobile-first, end-to-end remote lending and onboarding solution, Flint, has some momentum due to the global pandemic too.
This app can be easily and smoothly integrated into the infrastructure of financial institutions. Banks are playing a critical role in the crisis as systemic stabilizers for customers, employees, and for their economies at large. They need to enhance their current digital offerings, identifying key functionalities that can be improved quickly. From a credit perspective, banks should identify the most affected sectors and customers to see how they can be most supportive to their clients and communities. Some are already considering availability of credit, thus creating positive effect on customer relationships. According to McKinsey & Company, 74% of US workers said they are living pay check to pay check, while 58% of workers are paid by the hour. For them, financial impact of Covid-19 and lack of employment will be particularly difficult. Banks are being inundated with requests for credit from new, non-registered customers and they need to make hundreds of urgent credit decisions. Digital processes are crucial throughout the pandemic: digital identity and verification are the only way to open new accounts and digital credit scoring is the only way to lend. Our solution, Flint, can help solve all these newly emerging issues. We feel that we can help banks which are struggling to digitalize, governments which are not possessing the right tools to help their communities and end users who want to apply for loans safely and easily.
In the longer term, we are also focusing on RocketMoney, our youth and family banking solution too. We are continuously having talks about the customization of our youth banking offer with international financial institutions and we also have other large scale plans regarding this state-of-the-art product. Together with our partner, GoSave, our joint goal is to become the leading youth and family banking solution provider in Europe and provide thousands of parents and children with a feasible alternative to manage and learn about finances together!
Our ultimate goal is to become the number one supplier to banks and fintech startups, and with our design-driven products aimed at young people, we can meet Gen Z and Millennial needs and financial innovators’ expectations to the maximum.
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