UK start-up Sync Savings to make market debut next month
Two former Monzo execs have come together to launch Sync Savings, a cash savings infrastructure start-up set to make its market debut next month.
New UK start-up Sync Savings prepares for launch
The UK-founded start-up aims to provide banks, building societies and credit unions with a solution to embed their savings accounts into untapped third-party channels.
Its launch, following a six-figure friends and family funding round completed last year and supported by the Lloyds Launch programme, will first see the plug-and-play service extended to a cloud-based payroll provider, the identity of which has not been disclosed.
Sync Savings is the brainchild of CEO Joss Tasker and COO Alex Fox, who previously headed compliance and business banking operations for Monzo respectively.
“The problem for us is that 25% of adults have zero savings in the UK, while all of these non-high street banks struggle with high customer acquisition costs and high churn rates despite offering competitive rates,” Fox tells FinTech Futures.
“Which is why we want to embed these savings accounts into these uncontested channels, bringing them directly to savers at the point of intent,” he continues. “The point where a customer is thinking about opening a savings account is the exact moment that they should be shown one.”
Tasker adds that Sync Savings features a set of APIs which support the full embedded savings lifecycle for banks, from onboarding to payments and compliance reporting, which together “essentially means that we can distribute savings products to the mass market in a way that is simple, automated and saver centric“.
She explains how on the front end, “customers can either consume our APIs and design their own very user-centric journey, or they can embed our SDK (software development kit), which is a very low-code solution which we’ve designed to optimise for opt-out and automated regular payroll savings at great market rates”.
Partnerships and progression
Tasker goes on to reveal that one of the first partner banks to sign on for the service is UK digital bank Griffin. “By leveraging their core infrastructure we are able to deliver tailored savings products to a range of mass market channels.”
Post-launch, the start-up plans to run a save now, pay later pilot “with a very large retailer” in a move the co-founders describe as “a UK first”.
“The idea there is that you incentivise people to build good savings habits by saving for something specific and rewarding them along the way through their savings journey,” Fox explains.
“There’s a really good use case that we’re hoping to launch in the next few months by plugging into apps that help people build out their credit scores.”
The team have found no shortage of use cases, their roadmap includes plugging regular savings accounts into apps that help people build out their credit scores.
Finally, Fox and Tasker add that each product and partnership decision is driven by their mission to “help people build strong savings habits, fostering a future where financial security is accessible to all”.
