Converging for the customer

Insight Report: Aggregators

Converging for 4
the customer Introduction
Insight Report: Aggregators

6
Awareness
Categorisation to understand
spending and saving

14
Action
Budgets, alerts and notifications:
encouraging the customer to act

24
Activation
Recommendations for
customers’ jobs-to-be-done

34
Looking ahead
Convergence or congregation?
Models of aggregation
 Introduction

3 Financial intelligence | informa

2018 could be the Year of the Aggregator, where more customers start seeing the
value of pooling their accounts to understanding their finances and, with any
likelihood, feel more empowered to take the right actions for their financial
wellbeing.
Account aggregators and aggregator technology are not new. Mint was founded in
2006 in the US, and in the UK, Money Dashboard in 2008 and OnTrees in 2012.
Yodlee, which powers the latter two aggregators, was founded 18 years ago.1 But
large scale adoption of aggregators has not happened since then.
What holds promise for aggregators, is the era of Open Banking and PSD2, and with
it, the expected incorporation of account aggregation by the incumbent banks and
challengers. Yolt boasted a community of 100,000 registered users and 29
integrations in 2017.2 Anticipated this year are aggregators from Barclays and
HSBC, with BBVA and Deutsche Bank already there. UK challengers have more
readily embraced aggregator technology with Plum, Emma, Starling and Zopa
partnering with Truelayer to bring personal financial management (PFM) to digital
natives. N26 has gone beyond PFM to include marketplaces. Momentum across the
range of financial providers will offer access to aggregators for the masses.
With this speed of implementation, it is apt to ask whether consumers will adopt at
a similar speed and scale. While it remains too early to judge the success of the
various launches and those still to come, Mapa Research believes it is possible to
evaluate the benefits that the established and new wave of aggregators will offer to
customers.
In this report, we look at three key benefits which aggregators could offer to
customers:
• Awareness
• Action
• Activation
Our focus is on the customer and the potential value which aggregators can create
for customers.

4
 Awareness

5 Financial intelligence | informa

 Building Awareness
Before consumers can be aware of their the messaging short and simple, with
finances, they need to be aware of the benefits which matter to consumers
tools at their disposal. To create the much explicitly stated:
needed momentum for account
• avoiding overdrafts
aggregation, the new wave of
• lowering bills
aggregators clearly realise the
• being in control
importance of communications.
• saving money
• doing it all for you
However, this is not communications in
the sense of large, costly brand Moreover, semantics matter. Ending the
awareness campaigns, but rather in use of “finances”, “management” and
choosing to speak about financial services even “planning” removes the
in a straightforward way. It’s not about emotionally- and behaviourally-laden
“maximising your returns” or “staying associations with effort and guilt. It is
within your budgets”. It’s about keeping plainly about making the best out of your
money.

6 Financial intelligence | informa

 Action

7 Financial intelligence | informa

 Budgeting for action

To move consumers a step ahead, beyond of account aggregators in PFM and

being aware of how they spend and save,
is to show them the overall impact of
their actions. PFM has long incorporated
budgeting as a basic functionality, and
the new wave of aggregators have made
budgeting more engaging.
The importance of encouraging financial
engagement by showing consumers their
overall financial health goes beyond
personal responsibility. High personal
debt has an impact on wider society and
the wider economy, as witnessed in 2007
in many markets and the social fallout
that resulted.
The current situation of low interest rates,
stagnant wages and an increased cost of
living in many economies makes the role
financial education even more relevant.
Alerts and notifications act as clear
prompts for consumers to take action to
prevent financial harm and to stick to
their budgets. In the UK, consumers don’t
budget because:5
31% Find it boring
19% Lack time
11% Lack confidence in making
money-related decisions
12% Prefer not to know
8% Find it difficult
The push PFM functionalities help to
alleviate the negative associations with
budgeting including effort and tedium.

“50% of UK consumers
currently show one or
more characteristics of
potential financial
vulnerability.”6

“US consumer debt

levels are now well
above those seen
before the Great
Recession.”7

8 Financial intelligence | informa

 Activation

9 Financial intelligence | informa

MARKETPLACE INTERFACES

Lists and dropdown lists

Sliders to narrow down options

FIDOR (DE) CENTRALWAY NUMBRS (DE)

Product requirements for marketplace search Limited marketplace

N26(DE)

STARLING (UK)

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 Looking ahead:
Convergence or congregation?

11 Financial intelligence | informa

ALL-IN-HOUSE: BBVA
Wallet mini programs interface

BBVA (ES)

The All-in-House model can be convergent in order to

provide aggregators with greater control over the services
offered to customers. The different functionalities are likely
to converge under one interface reflecting the provider’s
design and branding. This can be a powerful experience but
requires the provider to be truly agile and experimental.

Two incumbents appear to have this model, Deutsche Bank

and BBVA. BBVA is perhaps the more renowned of the two,
particularly because of its steady stream of innovations.

The Spanish bank provides PFM, has brought all of its

products in app and offers account aggregation. By adopting
this model, it could limit the risk of disruption by continuing
to build out even more advanced tools. CEO Carlos Torres
Vila is committed to this: “We grow digital sales and
interaction by putting more online, and more capabilities at
the disposal of our customers.”12

With such commitment, customers can rely on the stability

and brand trust of the incumbent and also benefit from their
investment to continually improve the customer’s
experience in managing their money. DEUTSCHE BANK (DE)

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Tel: +44 207 566 3940
www.maparesearch.com