Filter out all the non-core stuff

Feedback & Ideas
1

Hi,

Any chance I can filter out all the nonsense (gummy bears and saving on my bills) as a Pro member?

You seem to focus way more on monetisation than you do on the features people want (and for the ones you do add, they have less and less real estate).

I just want to be able to connect to my bank accounts (and investment accounts) and track my spending. I’m willing to pay for that.

6 Likes
2

Here here. Agreed.

3

Genuine question: why are you saying that saving on your bills is nonsense?

Take energy for instance:

  • new tariffs come up pretty much every month from suppliers trying to gain customers from their competitors, so if you’re a new customer you almost always have an economical advantage if you switch (signup bonus, lower tariffs or some other welcome gift)
  • it is something that is very easy and quick to do
  • the exit fees are often £0 or at most they’re a small amount (generally less than a month of your bill)
  • there is no stress or inconvenience associated with it, I’ve never heard of a customer being left without electricity or heating because of a switch and nobody has to come into your house
  • if you do it once a year you’ll probably save between £100-£250 (based on your usage) and if you really want to squeeze some more maybe do it every 3 months

Why is that considered “nonsense” by some community members is something I would like to understand. The best argument I got so far is that you don’t like it because it is also a revenue stream and somehow that feels dirty, even though it is actually a win-win situation? (keep in mind we compare all suppliers without any bias based on how much the commission is).

What we see from the feedback besides this forum (the volume is 100x larger) is that people want actionable, step-by-step ways to save or make money, because seeing all their accounts in one place with categorised spending is a solved problem, something that even the Barclays app does as well as a hunderd other apps on the store.

We always try to innovate and be ahead in terms of pure budgeting features. Some of you may remember we were the first app to introduce automatic subscription detection and budgeting with custom date ranges (that subsequently everyone copied poorly). In the next couple months, we are going to ship some new tracking features that we’ve been working on and don’t exist in other apps.

4

I think you just answered your own question. Once a year. Plus, as I think many pro users already are, the notion of switching is not new - we know it can save money. Even in tariffs form you own provider. But you have options which are really focused on annual movements (bills and insurance).

Maybe you’re seeing different things in data from pro users…

2 Likes
5

As above. Why do you assume my bills aren’t already optimised? Alternatively, maybe I don’t care about saving a few pounds a year.

I just want to have the option to hide it and have a cleaner interface. People who get value out of it will continue to get value out of it.

2 Likes
6

1% of our users know. We are also working for the 99%.

For us 99% means people from the age of 25-35 with 1 bank account. :slight_smile: These people don’t have a credit card, have never switched in their life and need help to improve their financial life.

You come to me and say “I know PensionBee”, then I speak to 20 new users and they tell me “you made me think about my pensions, thank you”.

We, at Emma, have to address the needs of millions of people if we don’t want to become an app for 3 people like the ones who have been in the UK (and gone anywhere) for the past 20 years.

2 Likes
7

There is a time for everything - we accelerated ££ cause we are in the middle of a pandemic - priorities change unfortunately.

8

Ok I’m really trying not to be a pain here so I’ll keep the thoughts to myself. Just wanted to give feedback on the paid product and how I intend to use it which is not core for you.

I’m very aware of the majority of the U.K.s finances (low deposits, low debt) as have friends in treasury who work in digital finance.

Good luck with growing Emma :+1::blush:

9

Thanks!

I am closing for now. We love the feedback and happy to iterate on, but as you imagine, it becomes really hard for us if for every feature we release we need to put a toggle (on/off). There is a reason for everything we do and if it doesn’t make sense for you specifically, it doesn’t mean it won’t for the other 300k people who are on Emma.

ps: cool features are coming as well as more banks. :slight_smile: