Simplifying money for a generation
As we launch a new blog, I want to take a moment to talk through Cleo’s mission: what it is we’re doing here, and why it matters.
The idea driving us is in big letters at the top of the page. We’re simplifying money for a generation. There’s a hell of a lot packed into that statement. A banking system that’s been failing us for too long. A generation — our generation — aware that we’re being underserved. The banks have benefited from keeping us in the dark. But there’s a huge opportunity, right now, to build something that will clear all that away, and give us clarity.
What we’re doing at Cleo is unique. We wanted to change the way that people relate to their money, so we built an intelligent, engaged financial interface. You can talk to her whenever and wherever you need, and the information you get back is entirely tailored to you. That’s a far cry from the financial system as it stands, which often feels set up to alienate us from our finances. The banks have huge incentives to push their own products and services, while obscuring information that could benefit us. Cleo is the antithesis of that — everything she does is optimised for the given user. She works for you, entirely.
Cleo was built to help change your situation. The average Cleo user will save £518 a year with her auto-saving feature. And they’ll message her 4 days out of 7, with 2 in 10 talking to her every single day. The top 10% of users talk to her 6 times a day. It’s a habitual relationship. That daily interaction indicates the general hunger to engage better with our finances — but it also suggests that if we’re going to alter our habits, we want the interface to feel natural and integrated into our lives. Cleo’s radically useful in exactly that way: 507 users told Cleo they loved her last month. We’ve never seen finance like this before.
In five years time we want Cleo to be able to relieve you of the stress of money. She’ll be near-human in her interactions, but superhuman in her financial intelligence. Rather than having to trawl products and services, or being limited to your bank’s offerings, you tell Cleo what you need — £500, or a flat in three years — and she’ll be able to sort it in the way that suits you best. Your finances could be hyper-optimised. She gives you the option to step away from APRs, and mortgage comparisons, and compound interest, and return to the human concerns.
Finance is on the brink of enormous change. In the next few years a company will emerge as the key interface that everyone has with their money. That interface will be more transformative than Google. It will be set up to serve each customer, where the big banks have not. That’s the principle Cleo is built on — we’re taking the power of the banks over consumers, and claiming it for us all. The relationship that simplifies money for everyone.
