Snoop launches aiming to save us £1500 per year

27/04/2020

A new money saving app, Snoop, has launched with the aim of helping us to save up to £1,500 per year. 

Snoop has been created by a small team of 21 people based in Norwich and London and is chaired by ex Virgin Money CEO, Dame Jayne-Anne Gadhia.  Alongside her are a number of co-founders from the Virgin Money, who left following the takeover by Clydesdale & Yorkshire Banking Group in 2018. The launch comes following a beta testing phase involving 5,000 users.

The app works by using open banking technology to connect to your bank and credit cards.  The app will then analyse your spending and provide personalised advice on where you can save money and other tips and savings.  It also allows other users to submit savings which others can benefit from.  The app helps in three principle ways:

1) Cheaper products/services - if you are overspending on things like your energy bill, sky subscription etc it will tell you and help you to move to cheaper deals.

2) Money savings offers - it watches your spending and can suggest ways of saving money e.g. if it sees you shop in Boots it could offer you a free eye test at Boots Opticians

3) Promoting better money management - seeing all your spending categorised in one place, and in totality, helps focus on areas which could improve your finances

While many of us know that we could save money switching our energy supplier, only one in five did so last year - which was a record year for energy switching!  Consumers are generally reluctant to switch supplier and Snoop seems to be trying to take a different approach from those tried previously, by highlighting the personalised cost savings and hoping you will be outraged enough to do take action.  In some cases, such as energy switching, it removes the perceived hassle of changing by doing it for you.

Snoop isn't a bank but is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.  The app has 26 banks and credit card companies signed up to the service and all the major banks are available to connect.  The surprise omission is Starling Bank, who have been a great exponent of open banking.

Snoop aims to have three million customers in the next two years and it will make its money from commissions on switches, "tips" from customers who choose to voluntarily thank the app with a payment for the savings it makes and from selling anonymised client data.  It has raised £9m from Havisham Assets and Salesforce Ventures and will do a further fundraise later in 2020.

The app has lots of potential but it will take time to see how useful it is, as it will need time to build up its analysis of spending.  I will write a follow up in due course on my experience with it but, in the meantime, those who wish to try for themselves can do so by downloading the app via these links:

Android: https://clk.omgt1.com/?PID=38446&AID=2016239

iOS: https://clk.omgt1.com/?PID=38447&AID=2016239

NB - you will need to access the link via a mobile phone