Fintech Impact

Summary:

In this 101st episode of Fintech Impact, Jason Pereira, award-winning financial planner, university lecturer, writer, and host welcomes Phillip Barrar, founder of the Mylo savings and investment app, to talk about banking differences in Canada versus the EU, banking regulations, and more. 

Episode Highlights: 

● 00:33: – Mylo is an app that rounds up your purchases and invests the change to help you work towards your savings goals. 

● 03:18: – Phillip started Mylo after he was already teaching his friends and family savings techniques. 

● 04:24: – Canada has an under-banked population and aren’t saving or investing. 

● 04:40: – 53% of Canadians have under $1,000 in their bank account. 

● 04:54: – For Phillip, it’s about inclusion; how do you make products more accessible and affordable and remove friction points? 

● 09:06: – The roundup process in Mylo helps people go from saving nothing to saving their first $1,000 in a year. 

● 09:15: – Users can also set up recurring deposits in addition to the roundup. 

● 09:47: – Users typically save between $10-30 in roundups over the course of a week. 

● 10:16: – Mylo is not investment focused, it’s life goal-focused for users. 

● 10:46: – Each goal you set up in Mylo has its own risk profile and allows you to invest differently depending upon the goal time frame and your preferences. 

● 12:29: – Mylo isn’t monetized off of robo-investor fees, but from $1-3/month subscription fees. 

● 13:24: – Mylo also offers cash back offers with partner brands. 

● 16:01: – Phillip is expanding Mylo into the EU. 

● 16:50: – Banks regularly change their websites and APIs to break connections with third party aggregator apps. 

● 18:09: – Companies in most English-speaking countries are afraid to expand to the EU because it’s multilingual and multi-domicile, but for Mylo, which was founded in the bilingual Montreal, it felt natural. 

● 22:55: – Mylo partners with Canada Helps and allows you to connect a goal to a charity and directly give to them through the platform. 

● 23:28: – Mylo recently launched a beta version of Mylo Advisor, which allows you to ask a one-off question to a financial planner. 

● 24:58: – Most Mylo users are high-income users for the age group. 

● 28:45: – If Phillip could change one thing in the industry it would be to push people on the regulatory side to be more open to change more quickly in order to remove friction. 

● 30:10: – The biggest challenge has been that the bar to get funding is so much higher in fintech than in other industries due to the money needed to navigate regulatory bodies. 

● 31:59: – What most excites Phillip are the messages he gets from users. 

3 Key Points 

1. Canada is an underbanked population that does not save or invest its money. 

2. Mylo is focused on helping users achieve their financial goals. 

3. Banking security comes from regulation not from the size of the bank. 

Tweetable Quotes: 

● “We need to be able to start putting together the right practices in place. It’s something everyone wants to do. It’s more financial literacy through doing versus more financial literacy through learning or education.” –Phillip Barrar 

Resources Mentioned: 

● Facebook – Jason Pereira’s Facebook 

● LinkedIn – Jason Pereira’s LinkedIn 

● FintechImpact.co – Website for Fintech Impact 

● https://mylo.ai/