LONDON, December 4th: Money management app HyperJar soft-launches this month, using a simple, digital version of jam-jar budgeting to give consumers a more sustainable and rewarding relationship with their everyday money.
Behind the app’s simple, intuitive consumer interface are some world-first, proprietary technical innovations. These include direct payments from an unlimited number of segregated sub-accounts – shown as Jars in the app - and a Group Jar function that allows for up to 30 users to pay in to and spend from the same Jar.
HyperJar account holders create Jars in the app, choosing the features and purpose of each from a short list of options. Everyday budgeting can be planned in these Jars, typically divided by category such as groceries, household bills, holidays and nights out. These Jars operate as sub-accounts from which users can spend directly by linking them to the HyperJar Mastercard in the app, without having to move money to a central account.
Another option is to connect a Jar to one of the partner merchants on the app, which at launch include Lidl, Shell and Virgin Wines. Each time ‘pay now, buy later’ money is committed to a Merchant Jar it attracts a 4.8% Annual Growth Rate (AGR) for up to 12 months, calculated and applied daily. An odometer shows this increased buying power growing in real time. Money in a Merchant Jar, including any rewards, must be spent with that business but there is no time limit. When using the prepaid Mastercard, payments to a merchant are automatically debited from the right Jar at the point of payment.
One of the app’s most innovative structural account features is the ability to share any Jar with up to 30 other users. These Group Jars act as easy, pop-up joint accounts and digital kitties. Whoever creates the Jar is the owner and sets permissions for those invited to the group, such as spending limits and seeing group notifications.
Chris Lowrie, HyperJar’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “It’s not often you get to introduce something genuinely innovative in PayTech, but HyperJar is just that. Our engineers have created a processing engine that recognises and assigns transactions to any number of segregated accounts, based on in-app selection. Creating something this new inevitably means making a lot of technical demands of our partners, but they’ve always been met and each partner has played an important role helping HyperJar to get to this stage.”
Jonathan Bennett, Chief Commercial Officer at CashFlows, said: “We’re delighted to be working with HyperJar in the delivery of this highly innovative card. HyperJar’s proposition is aligned with today’s consumer motivations where they would like to see their money work harder for them with brands that they trust. HyperJar have taken loyalty and rewards to the next level and we’re proud to be supporting this initiative. It aligns perfectly with our innovative challenger spirit, and constant desire to put customer demands at the core of everything we do.”
Richard Wray, managing director at Carta EMEA, said: “HyperJar’s ambition is to drive unique PayTech innovation. It presents Carta with an exciting opportunity to leverage its modern issuer processing functional stack and core payments expertise. We are proud to work with HyperJar and other industry leading partners to deliver new cutting-edge products like these to market.”
HyperJar’s innovative technology isn’t just simple for consumers to use, it’s also merchant-friendly. Retailers who are signed on to the app provide brand assets, merchant ID and contract information and HyperJar does the rest. The app’s back-end analytics deliver insights into broad as well as category-specific retail trends and consumer behaviour that can help reduce costs associated with customer acquisition and improve their lifetime value.
About HyperJar
HyperJar Limited is a UK-based fintech company. Its HyperJar money management app uses the simple idea of saving money in Jars to gives us better insights and control over our daily spending than ever before. After a successful pilot, the app soft-launched in Q3 2019 in the App Store and Google Play with several technological innovations, including direct card payments from unlimited multiple individual Jars, Group Jars for 2-30 sharers to create instant joint accounts and digital kitties, and an inflation-beating Annual Growth Rate on ‘pay now, buy later’ money committed to Jars opened with merchants featured on the app. Full public launch is planned for Q1 2020.
About CashFlows
CashFlows is a FinTech provider of omni-channel payment solutions. Its leading-edge technology and payments expertise allow businesses to accept card payments from all major card schemes and alternative payment methods. And through its BIN Sponsorship services, delivers speed-to-market for many of the most exciting card issuing programmes and acceptance at more than 38,000 ATMs across Europe.
This is all enabled by an industry leading cloud-based, API-driven technology platform, which is flexible and scalable by design. CashFlows is regulated by the FCA as an electronic money institution, is a principal member of Visa, Mastercard and all other major international card schemes, and is owned by Pollen Street Capital, a leading investor in European financial and business services.