What is Fi? Let’s try and answer that question

Many of us can’t imagine life without ride-hailing and shopping apps. We don’t think twice before using an app to pick up something from a nearby store.

We use smartwatches to track steps and decide how much more to jog. Fitness apps allow us to track calories and workouts to know if we can order that late-night snack. The list goes on and on. But when it comes to serious stuff like banking and healthcare, technology is seen more as a transaction enabler and less as a decision enabler.

This partly has to do with the idea that both these sectors are highly regulated and are driven by professional advice models. While it’s always good to seek professional advice, it does not mean you cannot have an informed conversation with your doctor, banker or investment adviser.

Last year, I got a full body checkup at a health clinic. They used this amazing tool called Health Vectors to transform my jargon-heavy lab report into a readable infographic that informs me about the thresholds that I have breached and how they can impact my health.

While I don't prescribe myself medicines, I find this to be immensely helpful because understanding the problem improves the quality of conversations I have with my doctor. This also increases my willingness to act on small issues that can impact my long term health.

Like health, at the meta-level money (thus banking) is central to our lives. Behind every experience is a transaction that enables that experience. I did a quick scan of my bank account statement (now my ex-bank account), for 2021 and there were over 250 transactions until March. That’s roughly 1000 transactions a year! Even if you’re a financially savvy person, it will take a lot of effort to consistently process and turn this transactional data into information that is useful.

At Fi, we believe that banks should be more than just a medium to store and transfer money. That’s why we’re building an app that helps you get better with your money.

So what is Fi?

Fi is a neobank that helps you manage your money across different bank accounts seamlessly. What is a neobank? It’s a digital-only bank (not a regular bank with a digital presence). The only address we have is your phone.

To start off, we have partnered with Federal Bank to create a default bank account when you register on Fi. Over time though, we hope to be able to connect you to any bank account and offer portability and intelligence across your whole financial ecosystem.

To make the default account powerful our team has worked relentlessly with Federal Bank to create technology integrations that enable a smooth paperless registration and secure connections with the bank. Driven by a belief that financial products need to be designed in a more user-centric manner, the following are some of the key areas where we hope to improve your experience with money:

1. Helping you understand money: We truly believe that any new age bank should be able to help its customers feel connected with their money. After all, it is the ebb and flow of life! When you bank on Fi, transactions will automatically be categorised and processed into intuitive monthly statements and in-app insights that will help you understand spending and saving habits.
2. Reward good behaviour: As you start using Fi and understand your behaviour with money, we’ll be there to keep you motivated by rewarding good behaviour. So when you make an effort to get to know your money better or take steps to save, we want to do the right thing by rewarding you for it!
3. Make payments seamless: Sending money to someone should be as simple as opening your wallet and handing someone a bunch of notes. Why make it complicated with so many options of IMPS, UPI, NEFT, RTGS? With Fi, the payment process is seamless.
4. Saving & Investing: We all want to save and invest more. But there are many hurdles in the process. Life takes many twists and turns and we might not be able to save or invest for a few months. Sometimes, we have a lot of excess money lying around and aren’t sure what to do with it. We’ve started by making saving and investing simpler and more flexible.

If you believe that you deserve more from your bank, try us out by registering on fi.money/waitlist.

In our next piece, we’ll tell you why Fi is different — through the prism of our hiring process.