Plum first chatbot to integrate Monzo and Starling
Money management chatbot Plum is now integrated with UK challenger banks Monzo and Starling thanks to open banking and a partnership with TrueLayer.
According to Plum it is the first chatbot of its kind to make use of open banking to integrate challengers.
“It’s great to see even more choice for consumers in accessing their money and Plum integrating Monzo securely through TrueLayer shows a glimpse of the exciting potential of open APIs and open banking in general,” says Tristan Thomas, head of marketing and community, Monzo.
Using TrueLayer, users avoid sharing their login details by logging in with the actual provider (Monzo/Starling) and then authorising another party (TrueLayer) to access their data.
This allows Plum to request access to account data held by Monzo or Starling, via an API, without ever learning the user’s login information.
Plum says account information will only be accessible when a customer chooses to use a new product and actively agrees to share their information. Access is read-only so cannot be used to make changes and the data passed is end-to-end encrypted.
Plum works by connecting to UK current accounts and monitoring spending patterns, setting aside an amount of money that can be saved every few days.
Users can also analyse their spending using the Insights features or choose to invest in one of seven options tailored around industry themes such as ethical investments.
Launched in January 2017, Plum says it has so far saved £24 million for 130,000 users.
