Snoop’s unique Budgeting Service Qorus Banking Innovation Awards 2023

Introduction Snoop is a money management fintech using open banking data to deliver data-driven, personalised insights to help consumers make more of their money. This year Snoop launched a free two-tap Budgeting Service to create a hassle-free, instant and personalised budget based on users actual spending across all their finances. We designed the service to take away the traditional pain point of budgeting (time-consuming to set up and manage accurately on an ongoing basis) and we believe that it will help consumers rethink the way they spend and help them find ways to save money. Customer feedback has been excellent. Of those customers who have completed a budget within the app, 79% have used the unique two tap functionality. Context According to the Financial Conduct Authorities Financial Lives 2022 survey: 60% of all UK adults are finding it a heavy burden or somewhat of a burden to keep up with their bills and 12.9 million UK adults now have low financial resilience. There are many combining factors that result in low financial capability and resilience. One of them is not having a budget or having an inaccurate budget. The system makes it straightforward to create a bank account and provide people with a card so they can spend that money, but not the resources and tools by which they can effectively manage their finances. Research by FinCap shows: • Only 58% feel comfortable creating a personal budget. • 69% of households have insufficient emergency funds. • 22% of UK adults have less than £100 in savings & investments. After just one year, 83% of people who set financial objectives are happier with their finances. Snoop’s money management and budgeting tools aim to help make it easier to set budgets, help people to save money and meet their financial objectives to improve financial wellbeing and make everyone better off. Problem There is nothing more soul destroying than the personal admin required to set up a budget and manage it on an ongoing basis. (As per the above, only 58% feel comfortable creating a household budget). It takes lots of paperwork, lots of time and is prone to error (potentially incomplete - rubbish in, rubbish out). Even when people have a budget in place, they may struggle to stay on track with their spending goals, especially if they encounter unexpected expenses or make impulse purchases. The market is full of attempts to fix this problem, but Snoop's analysis shows that all attempts fall short. Manual (Excel) budget planners with >100-line items to input are too overwhelming for beginners and too time-consuming and onerous for others. Other tools and apps aimed at fixing the problem have significant shortcomings and miss features, which can only result in error and confusion. Some even charge for the privilege. Solution Snoop’s unique two tap Budgeting Service aims to solve this problem and has endeavoured to turn something important, but painful to the customer, into a hassle-free solution. The opportunity is to transform the way customers engage with and manage their money to ensure better financial outcomes for everyone. The key challenge when it comes to persuading consumers to embrace the service (and money management as a whole) is to make it easy and personal to the user. That is why the service is free to everyone, with instant set up and uses the customer’s payments data to help them create bespoke budgets and anchor budget setting decisions (based on their actual bills and spending patterns) with speed and accuracy. Customer Feedback and Results The customer feedback has been excellent: “The budget function is a game changer well done.” “I think the new budgeting section of Snoop is excellent. It really helps you to see more rather than just what bills you're spending each month. Thanks, and keep up the excellent work.” “Even better now with the budgeting feature.” "Such a clever and comprehensive app. Snoop’s new budgeting feature has made looking at monthly spending so much easier. "As someone with ADHD who is terrible at organisation and money management, this app has been game changing. Having all my accounts visible in one place makes budgeting so much easier. It’s simple to use, gives personalised tips and deals and helps me keep my finances in check." “Love this app, easy to use and has helped me earn hundreds of pounds. As well as keeping me savvy with my outgoings. Would 100% recommend. “Fantastic little app | This amazing app has given me new insight into my banking and spending habits. The result has saved me thousands.” “Snoop has made a huge difference to my life. It is so easy to use and has really helped me to organise my finances. Highly recommend.” - Snoop has over 16,000 four and five-star reviews. - 74% of customers say that Snoop has made them feel better about their financial situation. - 8/10 Snoop customers say it is much easier to keep on top of their money and spending. - Nearly half score Snoop 10/10 when asked how likely they are to recommend. Our new Budgeting Service delivers genuine value to customers (at a time when it is needed most (during the cost-of-living crisis) and we believe that the Snoop App is a strong exemplar of what can be achieved for customers by using open banking and payments data in intelligent and innovative ways to drive personalisation in financial services to deliver better financial outcomes for people.