City A.M.’s Crypto Insider speaks to Andrew Rabbit, CEO of incuto.com
I recently met up with Andrew Rabbitt, CEO of incuto.com, a banking technology platform for a new global network of community-focused, ethical challenger banks.
Whilst mainstream banks suffer an expensive, legacy debt of technology, a large number of hard-pressed individuals are unbanked.
“We saw an opportunity to combine a love of technology with addressing a significant social challenge. The financial market is dominated by PayDay lenders and pre-paid bank accounts, which exploit the very people who can least afford it, with high interest rates, monthly and per-transaction fees. Paying more because you are poor is referred to as the Poverty Premium.
It’s hard to raise funding for social impact ventures, so I’m humbled by the support I’ve had from family and friends, investors and partners. I’ve seen first hand how destructive debt and poverty can be – I lost my sister to cancer last year – her final days consumed with worry that her two boys would be left with debts and nowhere to live.
Backed by social impact investment from Wayra, Ascension Ventures and Northstar, we’ve been able to focus on supporting Credit Unions, who operate across the U.K. and do an amazing job providing loans, savings and financial support to their local communities. However, they suffer their own challenge of legacy technology which makes them slow and hard to reach.
Now, powered by incuto, Credit Unions can use machine learning to predict behaviour, drive intelligent marketing and arrears management campaigns, issue loans in less than 5 minutes, with risk-based pricing, and monitor fraud in real-time. They are reducing costs, becoming digital, accessible, exciting and fast. Most importantly, they are becoming connected.
Integration with the Post Office, MasterCard, Starling Bank and Optimus Cards means incuto can provide a real bank account and debit card to Credit Union Members and an 11,500 strong branch network, to promote true financial inclusion.
With savings rates often 15 to 20 times higher than a high-street bank, incuto aims to support Credit Unions to serve the mainstream market of savers and borrowers, breaking the traditional view of them being the lender of last resort.
Financial education tools are embedded within the incuto platform, using gamification and nudge theory to promote the right behaviour and choices.
Our distributed ledger will allow massive expansion, aiming to create a global network of 68,000 Credit Unions in 109 countries, to challenge even the largest banks, without breaking the ethos of a truly ethical, community-focused service.
incuto is a family – the team, partners, investors, Credit Unions and the 14million people in the U.K. (2bn across the globe) we’ll strive to serve. Our part is to bring innovation, technology and passion – it’s a new and exciting challenge every day – who could ask for more than that?”
