Nudging Users into Thrifty Saving (NUTS)

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Financial management is critical to economic growth and wellbeing, yet 46% of UKemployees worry about their finances and 11% are in severe financial distress (Barclays,2014), a leading cause of unhealthy behaviour incl. smoking, weight gain, alcohol and drugabuse (APA, 2011). Financial distress also generates hidden costs for employers, impactingthe bottom line by an estimated 4% (Barclays, 2014), and is further aggravated by growingdiversity and complexity of financial products, financial illiteracy (42% of UK <25s cannotaccurately read bank statements), decreasing savings (UK has lowest saving rate of OECD)and overreliance on debt (avg. >£6k/household, >3k/personal) (OFT, 2013; Bank of England,2014; OECD, 2014). Each day 277 people are made bankrupt in the UK (Bank of England,2014), whilst demand for high-interest short-term loans soars (UK payday lending marketdoubled revenue in 3yrs, to £800M/yr by 2013, 50% of which was generated from rolled overloans with fees up to 7k% APR) (OFT, 2013; Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 2013).Squirrel has identified an opportunity to improve personal financial management with anintermediary platform that automatically processes income, generates highly targeted profilesbased on individual and contextual data, and applies insights from behavioural science tomodify users’ choice architecture, Nudging Users into Thrifty Saving (NUTS). Squirrel hasvalidated demand for this novel technology through discussions with prospective clients (incl.ByBox, Field Fisher, The Hut Group, Benefex and Thomsons Benefits) and key stakeholders(incl. Barclays, Techstars).Led by Emanuel Andjelic and Mutaz Qubbaj, Squirrel brings together >40yrs in finance andentrepreneurship with the ambition to empower employees to regain control of their financiallives. Squirrel has featured in high-profile media including FT, CNN and The Next Web, andhas received industry awards incl. Pitch@Palace and WIRED 2014 Startup Competition.