Fintechlab Company Spotlight: FF.Next
Welcome to Fintechlab’s Company Spotlight. In our newest series, we would like to introduce you to some of our portfolio companies via a short interview, covering topics such as where they have been since participating in our program, what milestones they’ve achieved so far, and a sneak peek at their plans for the near future.
In this edition we are moving forward with Ivan Muck, co-founder & CEO of ff.next (previously Family Finances), the startup that offers design-driven mobile banking solutions for financial innovators with a special focus on younger customers, including off-the-shelf, boxed solutions that are all easy-to-integrate and white-label as well as an end-to-end services from UX research, through UX/UI design to implementation. These solutions enable banks to engage younger generations, Millennials & GenZ customers with design-oriented digital interfaces.
Where did the idea of Family Finances come from? How did you come up with the concept of helping younger generations?
Two of our founders worked at a global management consulting firm as Fintech Analysts, where we got to know the fascinating world of fintechs. We also recognised that youth banking as such is a poorly covered segment and that there are very few design-driven retail banking solutions on the market. We also saw how severe the lack of financial consciousness amongst youngsters was and that this issue originated from the deficiencies of the educational system. Also, solving the problem is not a priority for financial institutions either, since they need to focus on more urging things like keeping their core systems up-to-date. Although the real impact appears much later, it’s worth investing in the financial education of younger generations to achieve a loyal, financially conscious, stable and engaged clientele.
Youth banking is not a bleeding-edge anymore, but it only has been plastered, not healed. 53% of millennials don’t think their bank offers anything different than others and 1/3 will switch banks if a better option comes their way. Only 5% of youngsters feel that their bank fully understands their financial needs. Also, financial knowledge of young people is extremely low globally: 44% of youngsters under the age of 35 are financially illiterate in major advanced economies. Financial institutions need to enhance their digital value offering for young customers in order to compete with fintech challengers, such as Revolut or N26.
We believe that taking control over your finances is a lifetime of work, and starting to learn about financial literacy and how to manage your money is vital from a young age. In order to increase the financial consciousness of youngsters they must be involved in financial services early on, which require digital solutions, interfaces and in the end — applications which can be used easily and intuitively.
We decided to take this matter into our own hands by revolutionising financial education and providing the appropriate tools, platforms and eventually the right customer experience to younger customer by helping financial institutions serve their true needs. This is how the idea of ff.next was born.
What is the story behind the company? How has your focus shifted over the years?
Our company was founded in May 2017. The beginning dates back to MKB Fintechlab’s competition, where we made it to the top 8 and became part of the incubator programme of the organisation. We participated in several prestigious accelerator programs, like Telenor’s Accelerate, PwC’s Startup Collider in Warsaw and the Zürich-based fintech accelerator called F10. We also would like to highlight OTP Bank’s programme where we ended up providing UX consultancy and prototyping for the bank. Also, last year we had the chance to work together with Intesa Sanpaolo on an exciting proof-of-concept as well as contributed to great fintech startups’ successes, like Brokerchooser, Trustchain or Cristo.
Since 2017, we have come a long way and from a one-product startup we became a multi-product company with comprehensive end-to-end services evolving from family banking through youth banking to design-driven banking.
We operate in a hybrid business model, enabling us to constantly grow in a sustainable way by simultaneously having our easy-to-customise, white-label boxed products and project-based, end-to-end services.
What kind of boxed solutions do you offer for your customers?
Currently we have 2 flagship off-the-shelf products for financial institutions. Flint — which we’ve co-created with Lippert Software & Consulting — is a millennial-friendly, end-to-end, mobile-first lending and onboarding solution, which is capable of executing credit scoring through a mobile platform, enabling banks to provide credit for new customers within 20 minutes. RocketMoney is a youth and family banking solution we offer for 12–18 years old: an allowance management application helping youngsters manage, save and also make money in a smart way, while enabling parents to transfer pocket money to their children with just one tap, while providing a transparent transaction history and trackability.
You re-branded your company recently: you changed its visual image and decided to continue as FF.Next. What was the reason for the change?
We have come a long way since Family Finances was founded in 2017. Over the course of these 3 years we’ve been helping financial innovators — over 5 banks and 10 fintechs — roll out truly design-driven fintech solutions.
As we are celebrating our 3rd birthday we feel that we have grown out our original name and branding as Family Finances. We shifted from focusing solely on family & youth banking and have broadened our scope to design-driven banking, along with end-to-end digital product development services.
We still stick to the beloved legacy of FF, however, we know that we reached the NEXT chapter of our startup’s story. This is the reason why Family Finances continues its journey as ff.next!
Our design team also prepared a showreel video in which we revealed our new brand and included some visuals of our project works and boxed products too. To celebrate our anniversary properly, we also renewed our website and besides refreshing the contents, we decided to add custom illustrations and a new, fresh aesthetic to it.
And now we come to the topic that has had a huge impact on every company’s life these past few months. How has COVID-19 affected FF.Next?
As our clientele includes fintech startups as well as large financial institutions, it is worth dividing the answer into two parts.
In case of our ongoing projects in cooperation with fintech startups, our partners are companies with stable capital that are no longer in initial phase, so they are not significantly affected by the crisis. We also consider the situation as an opportunity in their case, as the pandemic can also have a positive effect on the product development strategies of these companies.
In the case of banks, we experienced a reduction in the number of innovation projects, but we are confident that our products and services can help them even in this difficult situation. Examples of such digital solutions include our end-to-end, mobile-first onboarding product, Flint, which allows users to request financial products, credit cards, personal loans or open a bank account from the security of their homes via their mobile phones.
In addition, we hope that this new situation will create new opportunities for us too and we are confident that we will soon be able to return to our original plans for this year and think further about our future visions.
What are your short and long-term goals for expanding your services?
Our short term goal is to implement our end-to-end, mobile-first remote lending and onboarding solution, Flint, helping as many financial institutions as possible to provide their clients with contactless, safe and fully-digital financial products in these trying times.
Our long-term goal is to become the number one one-stop-shop of banks and fintech startups locally and globally as well, so they can satisfy the needs of their Millennial and Gen Z clients with our design-oriented digital interfaces.
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We hope you enjoyed this intro to FF.Next! To learn more and to check their showreel video on their rebranding, visit their website at https://www.ffnext.io/
