Age-friendly banking and fraud prevention

Desired outcome

Find technical (data or behavorial driven) solutions to empower consumers, especially older adults, to manage their finances more efficiently and protect them from financial exploitation through scams. phishing, poor financial advice, etc.

Find new ideas for product / service properties that go beyond the current available solutions (offered by us or other fintechs) that build on new trends like e.g. ChatGPT, NLP, in order to personalize the experience and results based on the users individual financial situation, financial knowledge, digital skills, etc.

Initial Problem Description

Context

Banks seem to be "demographically blind", failing to address the challenges faced by Germany's elderly population, starting with online banking. This neglect needs to be mitigated, especially considering that Germany, with 23 % of its population aged 65 and above (approximately 18 million), is one of the oldest countries in the world. Almost every 2nd German is 50 and above. And the demographic shift is fueled by declining fertility rates and increasing longevity. This is not just a German problem but can be seen in the majority of countries worldwide

More and more people in Germany are using online banking to check their account balance or make a transfer on a daily basis. Nevertheless, there are still many Germans who have not yet recognized the benefits of digital finance. In 2022,
83 % of Germans at the age 65 and above used the internet, while another official report has shown only 31% of people in this age group and above were using online banking. And this gap starts earlier, namely at 45 and above: while 95 % in this group are online daily, only 60 % use e-banking.

But even when people 50+ start using online- banking, they are overwhelmed and frustrated with the one-size fits all solution at their bank, overloaded with functionalities they don't need, constantly changing interfaces, full of product advertising, etc.

The fact that digital banking and e-payment solutions need to be more age-friendly was recently also acknowledged in a study by the EU Commission, reflecting on two main issues: “(1) accessing payment accounts and (2) the complexities faced by some consumers (such as the elderly) when adapting to new procedures [...]. Increasing digitalisation of payment services, coupled with lack of digital financial education of customers might lead to financial exclusion of vulnerable groups.”

With age, the risk of receiving incorrect advice or feeling overwhelmed by financial decisions increases. In addition, a pressing concern is the rising number of scams targeting consumers, particularly seniors - which will only increase due to scammers using AI.

Connection to cross-cutting areas

The initial Call that INDUSAC is connected with "Call: A HUMAN-CENTRED AND ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL [AND INDUSTRIAL] TECHNOLOGIES 2021 (HORIZON-CL4-2021-HUMAN-01)" is a perfect description of the Brygge purpose mission as a profit-for-impact fintech: Brygge fights ageism in the financial (technology) industry by providing banking with comfort, i.e. equipping users with human-centric banking, ad-free financial tips, and anti-rip-off features for lifelong participation and optimistic handling of their finances.

For many years now financial technology innovations have centered around the same group(s) of people – young, finance-savvy, mid- or high earners, following every digital trend. Why? Well, the statistics regarding software developers* are clear: 92 % of them are men, 76.6 % are White or European, while 4.3 % are aged 55plus and another 4.3% have a physical difference, the majority being blind or having difficulty seeing. What about banks and insurers? Well, there are not even such statistics to quote from. Diversity awareness is still in its infancy in the industry.

Brygge is a fintech innovation for German speakers who have not grown up with digitization. Who find financial stuff rather boring or online banking annoying – or people who are not even using banking online yet. Who sometimes get annoyed because they fall into bargain traps or do not recognize an online fake shop at first sight. People who are maybe stressed by their finances or perhaps on top by caring for the finances of their family's elders, and face new financial questions in their 2nd half of life, that means we target people aged 50plus. Brygge provides Banking with comfort for them.

So we connect with digitalisation as well as general sustainability, as we foster the S in ESG. Growth for us means successfully scaling our measurable impact by means of KPIs based on 8 SDG targets (and 4 SDG goals: ).

Input

We can provide information on the general context, statistics about the target group, as well as own lessons learned from our current users. We can also share the product offers of similar startups. However, we would try not to influence the team in terms of what is technically and regulatory available and feasible. We would prefer the students and research team to come up with various ways and ideas to use for example AI and NLP. to address the problem while considering what is already available at Brygge.

The current live product provides banking with comfort for German speakers in their 2nd half of life, i.e. who are 50plus, male/female with our without prior online-banking experiences.

Our current product specs:
- works with every German bank (no bank switch necessary, uses open banking technology)
- users connect their own and/or bank accounts that they take care of via power of attorney (tandem-banking). We cover checking accounts, savings / cash accounts and credit cards. We currently do not allow to connect securities / trading accounts - technically it would be possible though.
- we offer a responsive web based application (no download needed) with an age friendly but modern usability and clear, easy to understand language
- we provide independent financial/consumer knowledge matched to the users' everyday life. While scrolling through the transactions. the user sees certain knowledge or warning reports. We use the transaction details, payee, amount, transaction category, etc to match our content. We do not profile the users.
- We share warnings about financial risks in reports but also provide warnings when the user sends a money transfer to an eg. non DE IBAN or to a company that received
- our application is 100% ad-free, i.e. we do not sell financial products as a solution to risks
- we offer a monthly subscription, which is affordable for everyone, as one pays € 0,- / 4,- / 8,- or 12,- for our monthly subscription depending on the regular monthly income. The user has a free trial period which ends automatically.

Expectations

Explore amongst other the AI & NLP trends and see what other trends can be applied to our target group and pain points . Be open minded and creative. Don't just say we need to use ChatGPT for a chat bot. Think outside of the box and especially, try to see this from the perspective of a 50+ person. Talk to your parents, grand-parents to get a first hand understanding of how they deal with their finances / banking and how different they might be from your team members families.
Don't limit your ideas to the German market or the current status quo of Brygge.

Desired Team Profile

An interdisciplinary team from marketing, psychology, technology, finance, adult education, ESG/social affairs would be ideal for us - we are aware that this is certainly difficult to realize. So we are open for teams from all of these backgrounds.
The most important skills for this job are actually independent of academic background, i.e. analytical skills, empathy, interest in user centric design, and the ability to think outside the box.

Additional Information

We are currently only live in Germany and are the only open banking fintech in EU that focuses on the target group 50+. There are similar fintechs in the UK and USA that are focusing on credit card transactions and / or vulnerable users overall - mainly focused however on people with disabilities or already with Alzheimers /dementia. We will be able to provide you with information about these companies if you want. Their product offerings are relevant for Brygge as well but are outside of this challenge. We would like to see you come up with new ideas based on trends and AI development / opportunities.

We aim to work B2C first for ongoing human-centricity of our product, however, this does not exclude B2B2C cooperations with (social) multipliers or banks. The challenge results could include product ideas for addressing use cases within this context as well,

Related Keywords

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Information Technology/Informatics
• User Interfaces, Usability
• Social and Economics concerns
• Education and Training
• Sustainability
• Digitalization
• Safety for elderly
• Consumer Products
• Consumer Services
• Banking
• ageism
• accessibility
• longevity
• financial literacy
• fraud prevention
• nlp