This week we are talking with Ben Soppitt, Founder of Unifimoney.

Unifimoney is a new digital private bank for affluent millennials – young doctors, lawyers, architects, people working in tech and finance, etc. It is a mobile-based account that integrates a high-yield checking account, credit card, and investment platform. Automation means users get all the benefits of optimally managing their everyday personal finance – saving, spending, and investing – without the effort.

Ben Soppitt is the Founder and CEO of Unifimoney. Born in London, Ben left to work in Asia in 2008, and then moved to San Francisco in 2015. Ben has worked for companies as diverse as Accenture, Visa, Ogilvy & Mather, Fitbit, and Samsung. 

1.  What was the big idea behind Unifimoney?

I don’t think there was ever one big idea, but several that came together at the right time.  For example:

• Banks were providing really poor value to consumers – average checking and savings accounts paying less than 0.1% interest

• Money is a very singular thing for people personally, but very fragmented when it comes to managing it – it’s not unusual now for people to have a financial stack of 10-15 separate financial services companies that they are working with, which creates a lot of unnecessary complexity and work

• We saw a gap in the market with around 60 digital banks in the U.S., and all but 5 focusing on people earning less than $25-50K, and the others really focusing primarily on investments

• We also saw an emerging trend toward the re-bundling of financial services – to reduce the complexity of managing money and bring technology to bear to reduce the work and cost required in managing it for better outcomes

“Simple Money for Smart People” 

2.  Unifimoney offers spending, saving, and investing all in one integrated app. Why pursue all three?

Saving, spending and investing are the 3 main parts of every day money management. We should be doing all of them equally, frequently – spending every day is easy. Saving and Investing every day would take an enormous amount of manual effort and is, to all practical purposes, impossible without technology automating it. By integrating and automating every day money management, we can take the effort out of managing money for people. 

3.  With today’s technology, does a typical consumer need both a savings account and a checking account?  A credit card and a debit card?  

One of the first questions we asked ourselves was why are there separate checking and savings accounts? Especially as the average checking account in the U.S. pays 0.06% APY, and the average savings account pays 0.09% - almost the same paltry rate.  Turns out there is no reason, it’s just market convention. A lot of money – trillions of dollars - is sitting in these accounts doing almost nothing for consumers.  So we created a high-yield checking account – a true checking account – with all the things you would need and expect such as a check book, bill payments, etc., but paying high levels of interest.

We also asked why we have two bits of plastic that basically do the same thing in allowing us to pay for stuff. That’s mostly to do with decades old technology that just has not adapted fast enough to modern digital life. So we are working to eliminate the need for separate cards, but its going to take us time to create and implement the new technology and align the necessary partners – payments is a complex ecosystem.

4.  Unifimoney is designed to maximize returns for consumers.  How is Unifimoney able to offer that to its members?

The economics of big banks are not designed in the best interests of consumers – costs are massive – people, buildings, marketing, and keeping old tech chugging along costs a fortune. Yet banks are enjoying record profits and one of the most profitable sectors in the world. How come? We are paying for it in hidden costs, such as low interest rates on deposits, and not utilizing benefits and rewards from credit and debit cards.

So the first step is to minimize costs – by doing the opposite of the big banks.

The second is to design the value proposition so that everyone participates in a fair exchange of value.  The way it works in traditional banking is that the best customers subsidize the least active. For example, more than 50% of credit cards are inactive. So the cost of acquiring those inactive cards is born by the active users. We have designed our value proposition so it’s more like a membership club with rules – if you play by the rules then everyone benefits, if you don’t then you are charged accordingly so that no one ends up having to subsidize the costs of maintaining an account that is not used in a way that is sustainable for us or the community.

It also means that we can ensure that benefits and rewards are dynamic and personalized, rather than fixed, as it is for normal bank services.

5.  Banks spend millions on advertising each year.  How do you plan to distinguish Unifimoney in such a crowded field?  What is your customer acquisition strategy? 

Firstly we are in a field of 1 – out of all 60 or so of the challenger banks, we are the only ones focusing on mass affluent with an integrated value proposition across all of saving, spending, and investing.

Our acquisition strategy starts with having a fundamentally differentiated product, one that delivers genuine value for money for no effort – marketing has been described as being a tax on poor product design so we purposively minimize that tax. 

We will not be spending on ads within the first 12 months of launch. 

We have a growth strategy that is built on reaching customers in unconventional ways at ultra-low cost that no one in the market is using. 

6.  The company’s website www.unifi.money includes a Bank Cost Calculator?  What is that?  Why should consumers care?

The reason we created it is that, psychologically, people tend to prioritize short-term small gains for long-term larger ones. It is called hyperbolic discounting.  We wanted to help people visualize that the leaking bucket that is their personal finance strategy today may actually be worth a considerable amount over the long term. 

With the recent sudden reduction in the Fed rate, the difference between even the best high interest accounts and the worst big banks is now minimal, but it will return.

7.  Does Unifimoney have any new innovations on the horizon?

Our focus is to get the rolling launch completed starting March 31st in closed beta and being completed Q4 2020. We will progressively open up the platform for consumers in that period, to ensure that the customer experience is optimal and to ensure operational efficiency.

8.  How can people find out more about Unifimoney and the upcoming launch?  

Join the waitlist at www.unifi.money.

9.  I noticed that you use Medium as your social media channel of choice.  Why did you choose Medium?

I personally enjoy long form and it has been a great place to test ideas, learn from others, and get feedback. We are increasingly using Twitter and other digital channels including Youtube – if you have not seen our videos, you should – we think they are fun. We will be using multi-modal channels and media to reach our prospective customers.

10.  How would you describe an ideal work environment?

When I am passionate about what I am doing, it’s not work at all – that’s my ideal.

11.  What is unique about Unifimoney’s values and culture?

We are still really new – I think our culture will emerge over time. Our values, at least mine, are to build the very best product and company we can. I would like us to become part of a movement that changes the world of financial services, so that we are collectively serving the interest of consumers first, and ourselves second, based on their success.

12.  What piece of advice would you give to an entrepreneur starting their first business?

Ask me in two years.

13.  What’s your “one thing” that most drives your professional success?

I don’t think life is that simple and it’s too early to call success – what keeps me going is that I believe what we are doing is important, and is the right thing for me to be doing. 

14.  What are you reading right now?

Mainly Medium articles – they allow me to drop in and out of stories.

The Conversations with Innovators blog discusses new innovations, big ideas, disruptive technologies, and the thought leaders, innovators, rebels, entrepreneurs and trailblazers that make all of this possible.

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