Digitally setting spending and saving goals: Interview with Leigh Singleton, Financial Educator, Monifi

By Edlyn Cardoza

From all the goals we usually have in life, one of the hardest for most people is to achieve their savings goals. It gets challenging to save with the constant temptations, piling bills, and impromptu travel goals surrounding us.

No matter your age or where you are starting from, taking action to get your finances under control and saving money for a safer future is a big step. Smart money moves can open windows to new possibilities in your life.

In order to reach your financial dreams, your first step is to set a savings goal. Take a moment to ponder about what you want in your life. Your own home after a certain age, a new car, or support when life presents itself with financial hurdles?

Sometimes, the most challenging part of saving is getting started. But what if you are not sure where to get started?

That is when Monifi enters the picture. Monifi helps you control your finances and makes it easy to keep track of where your money is going. Because of Monifi’s unique separate Spend and Save structure, you are in control and only spend what you have been assigned to spend.

IBS Intelligence sat down with Leigh Singleton, Financial Educator, Monifi to discuss the tools of Monifi that helps you save faster and spend more wisely digitally.

How is Monifi helping the young generation in saving better?

Monifi entices you to save and achieve your goals by giving you unprecedented control of your money with a unique Save and Spend structure. Whether you are saving for a fancy dinner, beach vacation, down payment on a home — or all the above — you can set saving goals, and Monifi will help you stay on track and will celebrate with you along the way. Visual goals with images and progress graphs keep goals front and centre to encourage saving.

In addition to tracking goals, Monifi automatically categorizes transactions so you can easily search for how much you spent on coffee or dining out or just about anything else. Knowing exactly where your money goes helps you uncover spending habits that could turn into savings habits.

Features such as Ask Monifi that allow you to talk to your account Siri style and our upcoming gaming elements provide a modern banking experience to fit your lifestyle.

What happens if one spends beyond their set spending limit?

With Monifi balance and transaction alerts, it’s easy to keep track of your money. Don’t just get alerted if your balance is low– turn on Balance Protect to let Monifi move the money from your Save balance if your Spend balance doesn’t cover a transaction.

What steps does Monifi have in place to protect your customers from fraud?

Monifi employs a variety of notifications and alerts to help protect your accounts and your money. These notifications and alerts are sent via email or push notifications (alerts on your phone).

These alerts include:

• Lock and unlock your card: Where did my card go? Lock it until you find it
• Fraud alerts: We’ll text you if something looks suspicious – just let us know if it was you or not
• Debit card changes alert: Changes to your settings and unusual debit card transactions

What makes Monifi unique from other banking apps in the market?

Everyone has financial savings goals, whether they realize it or not. The ability to create goals is how your relationship with Monifi helps you achieve financial security by building savings to weather financial storms or to go on a dream vacation. Goals are separate funds that exist inside your Monifi Save Balance and allow you to specify the purpose of the funds. Think of them as digital sub-accounts that are stored in your Save Balance. At the touch of a button, you can monitor your progress toward your goal of a down payment on a home or that new computer you have your eye on. Set whatever goals you like!

Monifi cleans up your transactions with our exclusive transaction enrichment. No more confusing bank jargon, random numbers or awkwardly worded phrases are needed here, and Monifi makes your transactions list cleaner and easier to identify.

The Ask Monifi feature lets you interact with Monifi and learn about your transactions and spending habits by speaking just like you do with your friends. It allows you to Ask Monifi about your money using words or phrases. Want to know how much you’ve been spending feeding that coffee habit? Simply Ask Monifi, “How much did I spend on coffee last month?” Ask Monifi will look at your spending and show you easy-to-read graphs and totals.

What should your customers look forward to in 2022 in terms of online banking?

Gamification elements to provide a “rewarding” experience are coming in late Summer 2022. The experience will reward Debit Card users with a Round-Up-to-Save feature. Every debit card transaction will be rounded up to the next whole dollar and transferred daily into your Save Balance. Save Balance features will be extended to include Save Streaks, Savings Analytics and Trends and Achievements. These gamification elements reward users for behaviour that increases their financial acumen and gets them closer to their financial goals.

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