Yolt

About the Yolt app

Yolt is a consumer app that helps people be smarter with their money. It shows all their accounts (current accounts, savings and credit cards) in one place, even when they bank with several banks, and works as a budgeting aid that calculates how much is left to spend each month.

It was created to solve a problem that was especially common in the UK. With money spread across current accounts and several credit cards, people had little idea of their overall financial position. Combining an overview of all accounts and credit cards with budgeting was new at the time: the technology to bring transactions from different banks together in one place hadn’t existed before.

Yolt launched in the UK in June 2017, later expanding to France and Italy. It connected to banks through Open Banking and PSD2, which let people securely share their account data with apps like Yolt. A prepaid Yolt Mastercard added spending and saving to the insights, and the company was registered with the FCA.

Period

May 2018 – Oct 2021

Markets

UK, Italy, France

Launched

June 2017, UK

Technology

Open Banking, PSD2

Key features

• All accounts in one place: transactions and a total balance across connected accounts
• Spending insights: categorised transactions, budgets and a payday-based spending tracker
• Subscriptions: recurring payments tracked, with future payments predicted
• Yolt card: a prepaid Mastercard with instant spending notifications and Apple and Google Pay
• Saving: round-ups, saving goals and streaks, and a payday nudge, all into the Money Jar
• Yolt Pay: pay friends, split bills and pay anyone from any connected account
• Stealth mode: demo the app to others with your amounts and currency disguised

Yolt 2.0: Money Jar

Challenge: help users save by setting money aside in an easy, educational and progressive way.

We connected the Yolt card to a savings mechanism. By spending with the card and switching on auto-savings, users are guided to set aside small amounts in a more gamified way. Saving feels less like losing money and more like collecting small bits, which add up over time.

All these savings go into the Money Jar, which builds up over time. Users choose what to do with it: keep it there, or empty it towards one of their connected accounts, which can also be a goal such as a holiday, an investment or an emergency fund.

That is the main cycle: spend, collect, save. It follows regular spending behaviour, so saving feels like a natural part of using the card.

Tools to start saving

• Round-ups: round every card payment up to the next whole amount and save the difference
• Fixed savings: save a fixed amount every day, week or month
• Savings weekly: a weekly digest in the style of Instagram Stories, summarising your spending and saving in a fun way

Yolt 2.0: Yolt Card

Challenge: promote the Yolt card in a natural way, combine it with savings features and connect it with Open Banking to help users save easily.

Process and results

Because this is a common use case across many apps, we focused mainly on market and competitor research into physical and virtual card patterns at traditional and neo banks.

Based on this, we designed journeys for every card-related touchpoint, integrating the experience from onboarding to card delivery, and from activation to card management.

Payments via Open Banking

Challenge: let users easily initiate a transfer from any connected account (or their Yolt account) to friends, selected recipients or any other account.

Through Open Banking, users could top up their Yolt account straight from their bank, and send money from their Yolt account or any connected bank account, to their own accounts, savings or contacts.

About YTS

Yolt Technology Services (YTS) is an award-winning Open Banking provider, offering PSD2 services such as Account Information Services and Payment Initiation Services, plus value-added tools including the Cashflow Analyser. It is available throughout the EU and UK.

Period

Feb 2021 – Oct 2021

Markets

EU, UK

Yolt Access Portal: internal CRM/CMS redesign

Redesign concepts for the internal portal used to manage customers, connections and KYC.

PSD2 payments concept

Send bills to recipients, who pay them directly via their bank.

Cashflow Analyser: consumer flow and admin panel

A safe and secure journey for applicants to submit their expense reports.

Mortgage advisor concept

One day to conceptualise new solutions based on YTS technology and PSD2 insights.