• BMO has launched a Real Financial Progress Hub.
• The bank uses the hub to guide customers through financial topics and recommend products.
• The launch comes after two standalone PFM tools have recently shut down.

BMO revealed this week it has launched personal financial management tools for its clients. The digital resource, called the Real Financial Progress Hub, will offer personal finance advice, tools, and resources to help customers reach their financial goals.

“For the first time, our customers can explore any financial goal and even multiple goals at once – whether it’s budgeting, saving, homebuying, retiring, building credit and more – from one easy-to-navigate digital platform. We have brought all of our personal finance resources into one convenient spot to make financial progress easier,” said BMO Head of U.S. Customer Strategy Paul Dilda. “As we welcome new customers across the Western United States to BMO, we are proud to bring them our innovative products and services that were built with customers’ progress in mind.”

Among the tools available are expense management education, monthly expense tracking, advice for planning larger purchases, and tools to help users understand credit. The Real Financial Progress Hub offers BMO a channel to promote its own accounts, products, and services to less financially savvy customers while acting as a financial guide.

The launch comes at an interesting time. Two independent PFM sites have shut down so far this month, indicating a lack of consumer interest for standalone budgeting tools.

However, just because consumers don’t want to think about budgeting, doesn’t mean they shouldn’t. Consumers are digging into their savings are leveraging credit at higher rates than before, and according to CNBC, Gen Z consumers are less into retiring early and more into what they call “soft saving.”

BMO’s free tool is currently live and available to its digital banking users.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska

• OakNorth announced the Beta launch of its business banking tools to serve medium-sized businesses.
• The neobank is taking a high-touch approach by assigning an OakNorth team member to understand each client’s business and bring them the specific set of tools they need.
• OakNorth calls itself, “the neobank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.”

U.K.-based neobank OakNorth announced the Beta launch of its business banking offering this week. The tools are specifically aimed to serve mid-sized businesses in sectors that traditional lenders often overlook.

With its current offerings, OakNorth underwrites risk on these underserved businesses by leveraging commercial loan data that covers over 270 industries. This data-driven approach allows the company to serve a wider range of sectors and subsectors than traditional banks tend to serve.

OakNorth’s new business banking tools target the underserved group with a high-touch approach that will offer a simplified list of products and services suited to each business’ needs. To do this, the company will assign an OakNorth employee to engage with a business’ founders, CFOs, CEOs, and directors to understand their business and assess features that best suit the client. The aim of this approach is to eliminate noise caused by irrelevant products and features while offering the ability to scale as the business grows.

“OakNorth’s mission is to serve and empower businesses in the Missing Middle, ensuring each and every one of them has the right tools, insights, and support at every stage of their growth journey with us,” said OakNorth Co-founder and CEO Rishi Khosla. “We know from the last eight years of serving our customers that they don’t feel their banking needs are being met by incumbents or other neobanks. They continue to be overlooked and underserved, despite the significant contribution they make to the economy and local communities in terms of productivity, innovation, job creation, and GDP growth. Given ongoing economic challenges, it is essential that these businesses have the right banking partner to support them, and we are excited to step up to fill this need.”

OakNorth was launched in 2015 and calls itself, “the neobank for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs.” The U.K.-based company has raised $1 billion across nine rounds of funding. OakNorth’s most recent equity round took place in 2019 when it received $440 million in a round led by Softbank Vision Fund.

Photo by Pixabay

• Better.com launched a new insurance shopping marketplace, Better Insurance.
• The new shopping tool is available through Better’s insurance arm, Better Cover, which was launched in 2019.
• Better is collaborating with insurance technology company Sure and Farmers Insurance-owned Toggle for the launch.

Homeownership platform Better.com unveiled a new insurance shopping marketplace. The new tool, Better Insurance, allows customers to purchase homeowners insurance completely online, with no brokers or in-person meetings.

Better Insurance is available through Better.com’s insurance arm, Better Cover, which the company launched in 2019 to offer a transparent insurance shopping experience.

“Insurance is a key component of the homebuying process that comes with its own unique set of risks and challenges. At Better, we are focused on leveraging technology to make products available that can reduce pain points across all facets of the homebuying experience, and insurance is no exception,” said Better CEO and Founder Vishal Garg. “As a public company, we are more motivated than ever to continue addressing timely issues for homeowners through our robust product offerings, and the Better Cover team is leading the charge with the launch of a more seamless, consumer-first insurance product.”

Better is leveraging two partnerships for the launch of Better Insurance. The New York-based company has white-labeled the tool in collaboration with insurance technology company Sure and Farmers Insurance-owned Toggle. Better is using Sure’s APIs to integrate embedded insurance infrastructure into Better Insurance, and has tapped Toggle for underwriting and help with designing and building the product.

At launch Better Insurance is available in three U.S. states: Arizona, Oregon, and Illinois. The company plans to roll out to more regions within the U.S. “in the coming months.”

Better.com was founded in 2016 to create a fully digital way for borrowers to shop for, apply for, and ultimately obtain a mortgage. Earlier this year, Better.com launched the One Day Mortgage, allowing borrowers to apply for and obtain a mortgage within 24-hours.

Photo by Klaus Nielsen

• NerdWallet is launching its first consumer-facing credit card called NerdUp.
• Launched in partnership with Evolve Bank & Trust and Bond, NerdUp aims to help consumers build credit responsibly.
• The NerdUp card comes with benefits consumers expect from traditional credit scores, such as 1% cashback and free credit scores.

NerdWallet is expanding from financial content production into consumer products this week. The California-based company announced today it is launching a credit card called NerdUp, its first consumer-facing financial product.

Banking-as-a-service offers the opportunity for any company to become a fintech company, and NerdWallet is a prime example of this. Through partnerships with Evolve Bank & Trust and FIS‘ Bond, NerdWallet’s NerdUp aims to help users build and improve their credit responsibly.

NerdWallet is focused on helping consumers and small businesses make smarter financial decisions, and the company’s new card has a handful of features that help cardholders build credit responsibly. First, the card does not charge a monthly fee; it is free to use. Second, NerdUp does not conduct a hard credit check, which means that nearly all U.S. adults can qualify. Third, the card only requires a minimum deposit of $100.

But just because it is meant for credit novices doesn’t mean that the NerdUp card is void of typical credit card benefits. NerdUp cardholders earn 1% cashback on purchases. Each month, the cashback earned is automatically added to user’s deposit account to boost their credit limit. NerdUp also offers users a free credit score, along with insights and tips to improve their financial situation. Additionally, since NerdUp requires users to pay off their balance every month, the NerdWallet’s credit card offers a 0% interest rate. This may seem like semantics, but it is a key feature for users trying to build their credit.

However, according to NerdWallet CEO and Co-Founder Tim Chen, the company may not add more financial products to its lineup. “We don’t strive to offer our own financial products, but in this case we saw an opportunity to address a gap in the market,” said Chen. A recent survey NerdWallet conducted with The Harris Poll found that 23% of Americans indicate that a lack of credit or bad credit prevents them from reaching their financial goals. In another study, 43% said their credit score has negatively impacted them in the past.

“With NerdUp, we believe we can create a win-win-win for consumers, traditional card issuers, and NerdWallet,” Chen added. “By leveraging our existing distribution channels to reduce costs, we are uniquely positioned to design and offer a product that passes lower costs on to consumers, with a secured card that requires a low minimum deposit, no annual fees, and no credit check while also offering cash back rewards, helping consumers build good credit behavior and unlock new credit opportunities.”

With its launch of NerdUp, NerdWallet is in good company with other credit-building credit cards. Credit Karma, Credit Sesame, Chime, Petal, and Experian all offer credit building programs that require the user to pre-fund their account. And another fintech, Neu, launched today with its credit card aimed to help college students build their credit.

With its seasoned brand and well-earned consumer trust, NerdWallet should do well with its new credit card. Founded in 2009, NerdWallet is a public company listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker NRDS. The company has a current market capitalization of $511 million.

Photo by Redowan Dhrubo on Unsplash

• TodayPay, a new “refunds-as-a-service” startup, has launched out of stealth mode this week.
• TodayPay is founded by former JP Morgan executive Jeremy Balkin.
• TodayPay’s technology decouples the refund from the return logistics to pay customers their refund instantly in their TodayPay mobile wallet.

Jeremy Balkin is leveraging his expertise in the financial services industry to launch a new fintech. The former JP Morgan executive announced this week that TodayPay, what he is calling a “refunds-as-a-service startup,” has exited stealth mode.

At its core, TodayPay helps merchants give their customers instant refunds when they initiate a return. The service also offers the customer multiple options of how they want to receive the funds instead of simply defaulting back to the original payment method.

“I built TodayPay because I’ve seen firsthand how the speed of a payment can change somebody’s life,” said TodayPay Founder Balkin. “There’s over a trillion dollars of value exchanged every year in the form of refunds, yet there’s been almost zero innovation improving the refund customer experience.”

TodayPay offers four main products:

• Better Refund, an API that decouples the refund from the return logistics to pay customers their refund instantly, while allowing merchants seven days to pay.
• Refund Now Pay Later, which provides merchants with a pre-qualified credit line of up to $300,000 with up to 90 days to repay the funds. TodayPay takes on the risk of the return so that the merchant can focus on their working capital.
• instarefund, a consumer facing widget embedded into a merchant’s existing return flow that helps them control the customer experience.
• Management Portal, a merchant-facing dashboard to help businesses manage all transactions in one place and automate refunds and returns management.

These products may improve the returns experience for merchants, however, TodayPay adds a bit more friction onto the customer experience. That’s because customers receive their refund payment in a TodayPay digital wallet. While the digital wallet is already set up via the customer’s phone number, they still have to log into their TodayPay digital wallet to choose how they’d like to redeem their refund– into their bank account, onto their debit card, or via a gift card.

While TodayPay was in stealth mode, it built relationships to be integrated into Shopify, BigCommerce, Woo, and Magento. The company is backed by Soma Capital, and is working with Astra, Marqeta, and Visa for the digital wallet piece.

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash