Three fintech startups from London have just launched their own version of chatbot which claims to help you manage your money better. How do they work? A virtually financial assistant plugging to your bank account will analyse your spending in the background and provide assistance when needed in order for you to keep track of your money better, oh and actually save some.
Techcrunch wrote a piece about this and we tried to summarize it for you.
These chatbots are targeting millennials who, they claim, are not financially savvy as they could be and, typically, who are using smart phones every day for communication.
Here we are introducing Plum, Chip and Cleo – 3 financial chatbots coming from the UK.
PLUM
Plum is described as the first AI powered Facebook chatbot that allows you to start saving small amounts of money. Founded by Victor Trokoudes and Alex Michael, who were part of the early teams at TransferWise and Tictail respectively, this chatbot connects to your current account and learns all about your spending habits in order to automatically deposit money into your Plum savings account every few days.
Plum is currently in private Beta in the U.K. and will move to invite-only at the end of October. It has just closed $500,000 in seed funding from 500 Startups’ microfund and a number of angels.
CHIP
Unlike Plum which relies on Facebook messenger, Chip – a similar micro- saving chatbot, has chosen to develop its own iOS and Android app. Chip bot automatically puts money into your Chip saving account based on what it deems you can afford. It does this by learning your spending habits and running this data through its own AI.
Founded by Simon Rabin and Nick Ustinov, who previously founded Roamer, Chip not only proves to people that they can actually save and afford to save but also aims to be able to offer a range of financial services that are “price transparent and help the customer have a happier and healthier financial life”. Think competition in overdrafts, personal loans, and forex.
CLEO
Cleo bills itself as an intelligent assistant for your money. The AI-powered chatbot lets you interrogate your bank accounts and credit card data which helps you keep track of your spending and hopefully budget better.
Cleo co-founder and CEO Barnaby Hussey-Yeo had a picture in mind that the app will help people manage their money a lot more easily. “It’s for people that would rather not spend a couple of hours every week in a spreadsheet trying to manage their cash,” he adds.
Not dissimilar to Plum and Chip, the bigger picture for Cleo is to offer a full range of banking products using the data you’ve handed over and its algorithms to make sure you’re always getting the best deal.
