I’m building Lucie Money

I’m building Lucie Money

After years working in banking and fintech, I’ve started building something new. I’ve put together a team and advisory board to make it happen.

Lucie Money is an AI-powered personal finance agent – a new approach to helping people manage their money without the friction of traditional PFM tools.

The gap we’re trying to fill

Australian banking apps have come a long way (I’ve written about that before). But there’s still a fundamental problem: they show you what happened, not what to do about it.

Dashboards and spending breakdowns are useful, but they require you to look, interpret, and decide. Most people don’t have the time or inclination to do that regularly. The mental load of staying across your finances remains high.

What Lucie does

Lucie connects securely to your bank accounts and monitors your finances continuously. Instead of waiting for you to check in, it reaches out when something matters – an unusual transaction, an upcoming bill that might cause a shortfall, a pattern worth knowing about.

When you do have questions, you ask in natural language. Want to set a budget? Ask Lucie. Wondering if you’re on track for a savings goal? Ask Lucie. Trying to compare home loan rates or find a better deal? Ask Lucie. No navigating menus or deciphering charts.

The goal is to give people the benefits of careful financial attention without requiring them to do the attending.

Current status

We’re building the MVP now, targeting launch in Australia later this year. If you’re interested in early access, there’s a waitlist at www.lucie.money.

I’ll share more about the build as we go.

Australian banking apps are better than we think

Australian banking apps are better than we think

Reading articles from The Financial Brand is always a good way to keep abreast of trends in the US banking industry, not least with a recent piece on app functionality (based on a recent industry survey) called “Major Banks’ Mobile Apps Evolve into ‘Payment Central’ for Consumers“.

But reading the article you could be excused for thinking the survey highlights radical new developments in retail banking functionality:

  • “Payments functionality on mobile banking apps keeps expanding, as consumers want to execute more complex transactions.”
  • “Major banks’ consumer mobile apps are becoming home to mobile payment control centers.”

Whereas the truth is that anyone with a passing knowledge of the retail banking space in Australia would recognise that the “more sophisticated tasks” referenced in the survey are really just functions that most Australian banking apps have delivered for years. For example:

Continue reading “Australian banking apps are better than we think”

Lego Banking: A modular approach to banking customer experiences

Lego Banking:  A modular approach to banking customer experiences

In July I attended the Microsoft Inspire 2018 conference in Las Vegas.

The event was pretty impressive, not so much because of its size (and, yes, it was huge), but more so because of the clear and consistent strategy that was evident in everything.

And that strategy has direct relevance to the trajectory of banking software: to the way in which product strategists should be envisioning and architecting banking customer experiences (CXs).

Continue reading “Lego Banking: A modular approach to banking customer experiences”

Finovate Spring 2016 – Day 2 Highlights

Finovate Spring 2016 – Day 2 Highlights

The second day of Finovate Spring 2016 provided over 30 presentations on a range of perspectives across digital on-boarding, roboadvice, data analysis and security.  As with day 1, a common theme seemed evident:  a combination of digital self service + human interaction + artificial intelligence.

I’ve previously written about a selection of Day 1 presenters; here are a few highlights from Day 2.

Continue reading “Finovate Spring 2016 – Day 2 Highlights”

Self-driving cars will change the world – and banking

Self-driving cars will change the world – and banking
These days it seems the news is full of stories about autonomous driving.

The other day I came across the video below.  It shows what can happen when an unprepared person is placed behind the wheel of a self-driving car.  In this case, the car was a Tesla in autopilot mode and the driver was the owner’s mother.

Source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVU6ANI059M

The video highlights what can happen when standard expectations confront new modes of behaviour associated with technological innovation.  In this case the disjuncture is hugely discomforting for the lady sitting in a Tesla Model S.

But Tesla is not alone in developing self-driving cars.

Continue reading “Self-driving cars will change the world – and banking”

Building an innovation culture in banking

Building an innovation culture in banking

Came across this very nice post today by Jim Marous summarising results from an Accenture study on corporate innovation.

Some of the key outcomes of the study discuss many of the things we all know to be true:

  • management support for innovative ideas is critical;
  • the need to focus on day-to-day functions often gets in the way of devoting time to innovation; and
  • rewarding a person’s contribution to innovation is complex:  if any reward or acknowledgement is linked to the innovation’s ultimate success then this can have the perverse outcome of discouraging some people, due the the fear of failure.

But there are two other lessons in the article I particularly liked.

Continue reading “Building an innovation culture in banking”