Yolt: everyone's money on one screen, 1560 days

Chapter 1 · Before Day 0 · 2016

A startup inside a bank

In 2016 Frank Jan Risseeuw starts a small team inside ING. The project is called Yolt.¹

ING had left UK retail banking in 2012. Yolt is its way back, but not as a bank. It comes out of ING's innovation lab as a separate money app, and ING's own products are not even in it.¹⁷

The timing is not random. A new European rule, the second Payment Services Directive, is on its way. With the customer's permission, banks will have to open account data to other companies.¹

The idea is simple: all your bank accounts and cards in one app, whichever bank they are with. In October 2016 a closed beta starts in the UK.²

Chapter 2 · Day 000 · 1 June 2017

Free for everyone

Yolt opens to everyone in the UK. iOS and Android, free.²

Your accounts and cards sit on one screen. Spending is grouped by shop, upcoming payments are listed, and the app tells you how much is left until payday.²

Partners come with it. The first one is an energy price comparison tool; money transfers abroad are on the way.^2,3

Risseeuw's line is on the record: instant gratification is the norm, people want convenience, speed and customisation.² In the first six months 100,000 people sign up.⁴

It's 2017 · Your call

You have an app people like, and it is free. ING is behind you, so no investor is in a hurry. Where does the money come from?

What Yolt did

It chose A.

The plan is said out loud at launch: energy suppliers will pay to be promoted in the app. Risseeuw says product comes before profit, and break even will come once there are enough users.¹⁷

Over the years the shelf grows: bill switching, insurance, investments, pension consolidation, then savings from Raisin's partner banks. When a user takes one of these deals, Yolt earns a commission.^18,19 How much this brought in was never published.

Chapter 3 · Day 226 · 13 January 2018

The doors open

Open Banking starts in the UK. Nine large banks, the CMA9, must now open account data through standard APIs when the customer agrees.⁵

For an app like Yolt this rule is not a wall, it is fuel. Data that used to be pulled in clumsy ways now comes through a proper door.

Yolt connects to Monzo, RBS and Lloyds Banking Group through the new APIs. Nine months after launch, 250,000 people have signed up.⁴

Chapter 4 · Day 365 · June 2018

Two new countries

One year, 300,000 registered users. ING announces that Yolt is going to France and Italy.⁶

ING's chief innovation officer Benoît Legrand puts it this way: launching something is one thing, taking it to the next level is another.⁶

The goal is written down too: a money app for the whole of Europe.⁶

It's 2018 · Your call

You have 300,000 users and the number is growing fast. The revenue model is still not settled. What is the next step?

What Yolt did

It chose A, and eight months later added C.

France and Italy are announced in June 2018.⁶ In February 2019 Yolt for Business opens.⁷

Chapter 5 · Day 623 · 14 February 2019

The second business

After six months of testing, Yolt for Business opens: the same bank connections, offered to financial companies across Europe through APIs.⁷

Yolt says demand is already there. Every week financial firms ask for Open Banking, but don't have the team to manage the APIs themselves.⁷

The app keeps moving too. In spring 2019 Yolt Pay goes into beta: payments and transfers between your own accounts, from inside the app.⁸ By December, more than a million people have signed up across three countries.¹

In February 2020 Risseeuw goes back to ING to lead its Model Bank programme. The new CEO is Nicolas Weng Kan, who comes from Google Compare and Confused.com.^1,9

Your call

Companies knock on your door every week asking for your bank connections. How do you set up this second business?

What happened

It got its own name.

The business becomes Yolt Technology Services. In February 2020 it handles 14 million API calls a week; a few months later, more than 22 million.^21,9

In the same months the app grows from just over one million registered users at the end of 2019 to 1.5 million in October 2020.^1,10 How the team and the budget were split between the two businesses is not public.

Chapter 6 · Day 1237 · 20 October 2020

A card and a jar

The middle of the pandemic. Yolt now has 1.5 million registered users.¹⁰

The app gets its first card: a contactless Mastercard issued with PPS, on an electronic money account.¹¹

The licence behind the card is not Yolt's. PPS, a company of the Edenred group, holds UK and European electronic money licences and a Mastercard issuing licence. Customer money sits in a safeguarded account at Barclays.^22,14

Next to it comes the Money Jar. Purchases are rounded up, cashback from selected shops is collected, and when a refund or a bonus lands, the app suggests putting it in the jar.¹⁰

Chief product officer Pauline van Brakel says people's relationship with money has changed dramatically in 2020.¹⁰ The app is no longer only a window on your accounts. It wants to be a place where your money sits.

Your call

1.5 million people look at their money in your app. Few of them keep their money there. What makes the app part of their daily life?

What Yolt did

It chose A.

The card and the Money Jar go live, first on iOS, then on Android.^10,11 It is a prepaid card on an electronic money account, not a current account; salaries don't land on it.^14,20

How many users took the card was never published. What we can see: registered users go from 1.5 million in October 2020 to around 1.6 million in September 2021, about 100,000 in eleven months.^10,14 Our estimate from these numbers is that the card did not visibly speed up growth. Ten and a half months later comes the announcement.

Chapter 7 · Day 1484 · 24 June 2021

The race

While Yolt runs two businesses at once, the engine side of the market turns into a race. In June 2020 Mastercard agrees to buy the US data aggregator Finicity for 825 million dollars.²³

Visa's 5.3 billion dollar deal for Plaid is called off in early 2021 after regulatory pushback. On 24 June 2021 Visa turns to Europe and agrees to buy Tink for 1.8 billion euros. Six months earlier Tink was valued at 680 million euros; it connects to 3,400 banks, 8,000 developers use its APIs, and it processes around a million payments a month in five markets.^24,27

In April TrueLayer raises 70 million dollars, 142 million in total.²⁵ Salt Edge says it is connected to more than 5,000 financial institutions in over 50 countries.²⁶

Yolt Technology Services has handled more than 2 billion API calls by then.¹² The rivals don't publish a comparable call count, so we can't line the numbers up side by side. What we can say: they do only this one thing, while Yolt's engine shares a roof with a consumer app of 1.6 million users.

Chapter 8 · Day 1560 · 8 September 2021

The decision

A short note on ING's news page: the Yolt app will close.¹²

The reason is one sentence. The app is unlikely to reach the preferred scale in its market within a reasonable time. Demand for the business side is stronger, so Yolt will focus on Yolt Technology Services.¹²

Weng Kan's line: our mission has always been to speed up the adoption of Open Banking, and focusing on Yolt Technology Services is a faster and more effective way of driving change.¹²

At that moment the app has around 1.6 million users in the UK, France and Italy, most of them in the UK.¹⁴

Your call

The decision is made. 1.6 million people use the app, and some of them have money on the card. What do you put first?

What Yolt did

Reassurance first, the date a month later.

The first message: your money and your data are safe, we will be in touch once the decision is final.¹²

On 7 October the date arrives: 4 December. Money can be moved out in the app, or taken from an ATM, up to 100 pounds a day. Statements can be exported.¹⁴ Accounts opened with partners such as Raisin, Wealthify and PensionBee stay open with those providers.²⁰ For everything else, the record shows no recommended alternative app.

Last day · 8 September 2021

What was left

Yolt had two parts, and in the end both closed.

1The app closed.It shut on 4 December 2021. The helpline stayed open after the last day.
2The engine followed.On 1 September 2022 ING announced it would phase out Yolt Technology Services as well, by the end of April 2023. 48 people were affected, 19 of them contractors.
3The founder was back at the bank.Yolt's first CEO had returned to ING in 2020 to lead Model Bank, the programme moving several ING countries onto one banking platform.

fspark9 note

Yolt had a lot going for it: a product people liked, the wind at its back and a strong investor. What level were the financial expectations at? Or was it designed as a strong testing ground for the bank itself on the open banking side?

A free money app has no natural bridge between users and revenue. People look every day, but they don't generate income. The bridge is built with a card and an account, or with partner products, and each of those is a business of its own. The first method tried was commission from partner sales. As if to show that this was not enough, Yolt launched its card in its fourth year. But did the card give users a good enough reason to switch? What exactly was expected from it? What kind of revenue was it meant to bring?

The second fork is the roof. A consumer app and the engine under it share code, but not customers, sales or patience. Inside one company they compete for the same budget and the same attention. Treating them from the start as two businesses, each with its own goal and its own numbers, makes the day you have to choose one much easier. By its nature, open banking fed and grew the API side. Putting energy and effort into both may have worn the team out. Would focusing on one early, and entering the race early, have changed how it ended?

None of these are easy calls in the conditions of the day, and looking from the outside and judging is always easier.

Last day · 8 September 2021

Wednesday. The app still opens, the cards still work, the jars still fill. But now everyone knows. The clock stops at 1560.

One last question

It's June 2018 and you are at Yolt's table. 300,000 people have signed up. What is your plan for the next three years?

You have a free app people like, Open Banking on your side and bank connections other companies want.

This story is built from public sources

If you spot a mistake, write to info@fspark9.com and we will correct it with a note.

Everyone's money, on one screen.

A startup inside a bank

Free for everyone

It chose A.

The doors open

Two new countries

It chose A, and eight months later added C.

The second business

It got its own name.

A card and a jar

It chose A.

The race

The decision

Reassurance first, the date a month later.

What was left

It's June 2018 and you are at Yolt's table. 300,000 people have signed up. What is your plan for the next three years?

If your story is just beginning, let's build it together.