Australian neobank 86 400 launches smart shared accounts

By Edil Corneille

Australian neobank 86 400 announced the launch of smart shared accounts, featuring a 30-second sign-up process and the ability to use it instantly.

“Shared finances are one of the trickiest parts of taking control of your money, but we’re making it quicker, easier and a lot less painful,” said Travis Tyler, Chief Product & Marketing Officer, 86 400. “Typically to open a shared account, you either need to travel to your branch multiple times or to the post office, provide duplicates of the already-provided identification and spend more time than you want to speaking to your bank. We’ve completely changed the process and enabled customers to do it from wherever they are, within 30 seconds.”

The Sydney-based neobank mentions that rather than waiting for weeks for cards and PINs to arrive in the post, with 86 400, customers are able to use shared accounts immediately, either to pay through their digital wallets or start savings. Customers need to invite the person they want to share finances with.

Shared account customers can access all of the same smart features that individual Pay and Save accounts offer, including:

• All payment options: Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, BPAY, OSKO, and more
• Budgeting insights: Tracking money in and out of shared accounts in line with your pay day cycles
• Setting up direct debits and recurring payments straight from the shared Save account
• Predicted bills and subscriptions through the Coming Up feature

“Shared finances are an essential part of many of our lives, making shared accounts an important feature for any bank,” Tyler said. “However, rather than rush a product out, we’ve spent much of this year fine-tuning our shared accounts with a pilot group of customers. Their feedback along the pilot journey has enabled us to create a product that doesn’t just tick a box, but genuinely solves customer problems. That’s the most important thing for us: our products and features must provide value.”

86 400 has created a beautiful purple card that’s just for shared accounts, so when customers are paying, they can easily see which account they’re using, whether with their Visa Debit card or digital wallet.

“Our customers also told us it’s important to keep some money separate – whether it’s for your daily coffee, or making sure you don’t spoil your Christmas surprise,” Tyler said. “We’ve built a product that makes it easy to sign up and get accounts for yourself first, and then add a shared account, without repeating your information, and in just a few seconds.”

“Our momentum hasn’t slowed this year. We have an ambitious product pipeline that we’re delivering on, despite external challenges,” Tyler said. “Launching shared accounts is the perfect curtain-closer for us in 2020 and will help our customers hit the ground running in 2021 and take control of their money.”