The ebook highlights the benefits that open finance is starting to deliver, as well as aims to offer a deeper understanding of what’s involved – how banks, fintechs and other partners are overcoming challenges to turn opportunities into reality.

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The full ebook is available to download here on the Open Future World website. You can also read our contribution in full below.

Snoop’s a new kind of app, designed to help everyone spend, save and live smarter. Snoop is on a mission to help consumers take back a large chunk of the £12 billion they lose out on each year as a result of their loyalty to the banks and big businesses they deal with.

Snoop helps consumers manage key aspects of their life in one place by taking advantage of Open Banking technology and a combination of artificial and human intelligence to deliver ‘Snoops' – hyper-personalised insights aimed at helping consumers get the best deals, avoid rip-offs and ultimately make the most of their money. To achieve this vision, Snoop looked to Hi Mum! Said Dad as a trusted partner to take Snoop from big idea to fully functioning product, at the heightened quality necessary for FCA regulated products and services.

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As a dynamic start-up, Snoop needed the ability to move fast and enlisted Hi Mum! Said Dad to operate as a dedicated extension of the Snoop business. Together, we established a reliable foundation, uncovered and validated critical design decisions, and then moved into an agile bank-grade delivery phase that would lead to a Minimum Marketable Product, and importantly, a proven market fit in less than 12 months – to fully take advantage of the market opportunity and establish a strong foothold ahead of the competition.

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Snoop knew from the onset that making it simple for people to act on the ‘Snoops’ insights would be essential to long-term success and put this conundrum at the centre of the product roadmap. This would be the key differentiation, so making sure this worked above all else was critical.

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To get this right, we instilled a process of continuous improvement; starting small, getting feedback often, refreshing regularly and keeping up the discipline of focusing on immediate next steps, one thing at a time. This approach is also reflected in our product releases; from inception to this day, Snoop has been deploying customer-facing releases every two weeks.

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We stress-tested critical features with users via qualitative research (what people say they’ll do) and on a larger scale in the market by monitoring how people use the app (what people actually do). This is key in holistically understanding behaviour and consumer attitudes towards critical features and building experiences accordingly. The challenges we have uncovered include:

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• Showcasing value and building trust. For Snoop, getting people to link their account is an important part of the experience to be able to create a hyper-personalised service, but it’s also important not to exclude the users who are not comfortable sharing their data. Snoop solved this problem by developing a ‘Snoop Lite’, which lets users engage with the content without having to link their account. This means that Snoop does not alienate consumers that aren’t comfortable with open banking or linking their account, instead offering an experience that demonstrates value and builds trust over time.
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• Onboarding and account linking. Snoop worked tirelessly on the onboarding experience to improve account linking. While user feedback was very positive in terms of its simplicity, there was a need to further explain the concept of Open Banking and what it means to connect an account. It’s important to recognise that linking an account is a big ask for consumers and Snoop had to think carefully about helping people feel more comfortable doing so.
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While more can be done, the vast majority of registered Snoop users have linked one or more bank accounts. This has exceeded all expectations for both Snoop and the critics that insist the barrier is too high for consumers to engage with anyone other than a traditional financial institution.

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As a testament to the teams’ collaboration and speed, the planned launch was brought forward to April 2020 in an effort to offer users a helping hand amidst economic uncertainty caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

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Since launch, Snoop has delivered over one million insights to customers and so far, the app has been downloaded over 200,000 times. The app is already having the intended impact, with one particular ‘Snoop’ helping residents on an estate in the UK to pursue a £75,000 rebate from their water supplier.

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Snoop has already proven it is possible to create a product that is driving significant daily and monthly engagement close to what we would normally see in a core banking app. Over time the aim is for Snoop to become both a leading brand in tech and banking, without ever taking customer deposits or lending. The best experience in banking will no longer be with a bank.