Moneybox

Streamlined savings and investments

Moneybox is a savings and investing platform that makes it simple for people to build and manage their wealth.

“We set out to help ‘normal people’ save and invest for their future, whether that’s retirement, buying their first home, or anything in between,” said Kaley Addo, Head of Investment Operations, Moneybox.

“Building trust is a challenge for every new fintech and that was certainly true for us starting out. The other challenge was reliable payments. Getting customer money into the platform is our bread and butter – when they tell us they want to deposit £10 a week into their ISA, we have to make sure that happens. Without fail.”

This is where GoCardless comes in. It provides Moneybox with a trusted and reliable payment method capable of ensuring customers’ money arrives safely so it can be invested swiftly.

A consistent and familiar payment flow

Moneybox launched in 2016 with GoCardless as its preferred payment method. Its priority was to work with a trusted Direct Debit provider that would enable Moneybox users to pay into the platform with confidence.

“Direct Debit is a sign-up and payment flow that customers understand perfectly and they trusted GoCardless to handle their regular savings contributions,” said Kaley.

As Moneybox’s features and customer base have grown, GoCardless continues to enable a consistent and simple payment experience. This all helps Moneybox to fit seamlessly into customers’ lives.

“Our customers are busy and they need their savings journey to be easy,” said Alice Drake, Investment Operations Manager, Moneybox. “It’s really powerful to have a set-and-forget payment flow that lets their investments build up over time, and in that way GoCardless means we can deliver on our mission of helping everyday investors get money onto the platform and into the markets.”

Moneybox customers can now do this even faster thanks to Same Day Settlement from GoCardless, explained Kaley.

“Same Day Settlement from GoCardless allows customers to get their funds into our savings and investment products as quickly as possible,” said Kaley.

Tight tech integration

Customers can pay into any combination of Moneybox’s ten-plus savings and investment products via a single payment flow.

That consistency is great for the customer experience, but it demands an ultra-tight integration at the tech level. Moneybox must be able to efficiently disaggregate funds and keep customers in the loop with investment-status notifications every step of the way.

“Connecting directly with GoCardless via APIs and webhooks means we can use payment successes and failures to trigger automated processes and updates,” said Kaley Addo, Head of Investment Operations, Moneybox. “It also means that even though we receive funds in bulk, we can get the GoCardless data we need to automatically and seamlessly reconcile over 500,000 individual payments to allocate funds to the right products and the right customer accounts.”

The tight integration between Moneybox and GoCardless extends beyond the tech and into the team, added Kaley.

“Every person I've worked with at GoCardless understands what's important to us and what we’re passionate about,” she said. “Having my relationship manager from GoCardless available via Slack also means we get quick responses, in contrast to some other third-party providers, and means we feel like GoCardless is working side-by-side with us.”

Uncomplicated compliance

Like payments, savings and investments are heavily regulated, so it’s vital for Moneybox to work with a partner that doesn’t complicate their compliance efforts.

“It's really important to be tuned into the regulations and developments in the payment space,” said Kaley. “Our interactions with third parties are regularly scrutinised by the FCA and our own auditors, but the relationship with GoCardless is such that when our auditors have pulled us up on anything, we’ve always been able to get together, have a conversation and find a resolution.”

Some things never change

There’s been a great deal of change for both companies in the eight years – and counting – that Moneybox and GoCardless have been working together, as each company has grown and scaled. Yet the partnership’s success is underpinned by the things that have stayed the same.

“In all the years of working with GoCardless we’re still able to provide the same reliable, reassuring payment journey for customers, despite the fact we now have 1.4 million customers and manage over £8 billion in assets,” said Kaley.

“GoCardless have been on a journey with us, and we’ve still got further to go together. For example, we’re discussing how to leverage open banking to allow customers to get their funds into investment products quicker. I feel confident that GoCardless can support these kinds of future aspirations, however much our product range and customer base expands.”