Crawford Taylor/Nude
News Savings And Investment
Homebuying stripped down: Nude opens virtual doors to first customers
The fintech has launched government-boosted savings and investment accounts as well as a homebuying countdown to show users how long it’ll take them to save for their first home.
Buying a home is one of the biggest events in most people’s financial lives, and this newest fintech is on a mission to make it easier and fairer for all.
Nude, a finance app specifically designed to help people save for their first home, has officially launched to its first customers, with the iOS app available in the App Store from today.
The app helps aspiring homeowners build their money towards putting down a deposit, allowing users to set targets and see how long it’ll take them to reach their goals.
“Our early customers keep telling us how motivated the countdown makes them feel,” Crawford Taylor, Nude’s CEO and co-founder said.
“By transforming ‘how much you need’ into ‘when you’ll buy your home’ we’re making it real. No one’s excited about handing over a deposit worth thousands of pounds. But when they can picture themselves collecting their keys and decorating their own space, they want to experience it sooner and so, feel encouraged to save more.”
Like other financial management apps, users can connect their bank account to the Nude app and track their spending and control their finances.
To get things moving, Nude is launching a Lifetime ISA, which can be topped up with a 25 per cent bonus of up to £1,000 per year from the government.
Nude is also launching a ‘Team up’ feature that allows couples, family members or even best friends to work towards a deposit together, with each person still eligible for the 25 per cent bonus too.
“With Nude, we want to cut through that noise and instead, give people support, tools and encouragement to show them they can do it,” Taylor added.
“Saving for your first home should be a fun and exciting time. My daughter, who has never saved before, told me she gets a kick of serotonin when she gets a push notification from Nude about her Lifetime ISA bonus arriving.”
To start saving with Nude, there is a £2 per month membership fee that gives members access to all the features in the app and, if a customer chooses to invest, there is a 0.35 per cent fee on top of that.
If Nude helps a customer save on their energy bills and the fintech receives a fee or commission for this, it will share any profit with the customer too.
As well as launching its government-boosted savings account, Nude is gearing up to release a bill switcher feature to help customers automatically find a better deal for their household bills and an impact checker, which calculates the cost of things users want to buy and how much time it’ll add to their homebuying countdown.
