Nova Money Planner - Q&A

UK Financial Chat Fintech Q&A's
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Hi everyone :wave:, my name is Sam and I co-founded Nova Money, an AI that shows people how much money they should save, spend and invest to reach their goals.

:robot: What’s Nova?
Nova is the world’s simplest Goal Planner where you can set financial goal(s) and see what it takes to reach them. Here is how it works:

The app is also an education platform to learn the basics of what’s financial planning, how to budget, how to analyse your transactions…

And we just finalised the support of Monzo pots :partying_face: So you can plan/prioritise all the goals created in Monzo.

:fist: Our vision
I lived most of my life below the poverty threshold and realised that the main sources of financial inequalities are financial education and mindset. We live in a world where only people who have money learn how to manage money, how stupid is that?

Financial Planning used to be a service accessible only to the wealthy, so I wanted to make it accessible for everybody.

My more belief is that with the right mindset and education, anyone can be financial free.

:eyes: Nova VS budgeting apps
Budget apps show how much money is spent, they are backwards looking.
Nova shows if your spending are in line with your goals, and will alert you when you need to slow down your spending. It’s forward looking.

Nova comes with a forward looking budgeting and tracking methodology, explained in this video: Understanding the Track Screen - YouTube.

:eyes: Nova VS robot savers
We don’t believe in robo savers (here is why). Feel free to disagree, but the only way to be in control of your finances is by actively managing where your money is going. So we built Nova for those who want to actively manage their money, improve their habits and be forward thinking.

:brain: What does the AI do?
Nova estimates your saving capacity based on your transaction history to assess how realistic your goals are, and when you can complete them. You get real-time feedback on your goals based on your day-to-day spending.

In other words, Nova creates a plan, and helps you execute it.

Since Nova tries to understand your financial situation, it’s important to have all your accounts connected.
If some accounts are not supported, then please recategorise any transaction from/to these accounts as “Transfer to myself”. This will tell Nova that these are not income/expenses.

:raised_hands: Who is it for?
Nova can be used to save for holidays, house deposit, plan your investments, and keep track of your daily spending. We designed it to help people plan their finances and improve their habits.

What kind of goals can I set?
You can add any savings and very soon investment goals.
Just to clarify, Nova is not a financial advisor and won’t tell you where to invest your money. Think of it as your personal CFO or executive assistant that will show you the optimal allocation of your income across spending, saving and investing.

How do we make money?
Just like Monzo, you get the standard features for free and can upgrade to a premium plan within the app.

I’m here to answer all your questions :smiley:.

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Yolt!
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And this costs £5 a month?

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Nope, you can use it completely free! Then it’s possible to upgrade the AI for just £2.99/m.

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Hello!

What’s the difference between the URL you posted (https://novamoney.app.link/monzo) and your standard website (https://novamoney.com/)? Are you tracking page impressions or something? :eyes:

Also: do tell us about the app and what it does - preferably in plain language (I’m a simple chap!). Perhaps some examples might help?

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Website is light on details, I’m not downloading something just to be able to check it out. You need to flesh that out for a start.

There’s no mention of having to pay for an “AI” on the main webpage either.

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Hi Peter,

It’s a smart link which opens the website on desktop, the app store page from iPhone and the Google Play from Android.

The way it works is simple:

  • You set financial goals
  • You connect your accounts through Open Banking in Read-Only (we are FCA registered)
  • Nova identifies your income, bills, variable expenses and works out when you can afford your goals. You can either pick the recommended date or customise it
  • the more goals you add, the higher your monthly saving requirements
  • You get a warning if your saving requirement exceeds your saving capacity. You can either replan a goal for later or delete it for now
  • Then Nova calculates your monthly budget so you can meet your monthly saving requirements
  • If you overspend, you can see the impact on your goals. You can either replan them or save more next month

Hope it makes sense!

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Hi Dave,

Nova is a freemium app, you can use it for free or upgrade it later.

We made a short video on how to set goals with Nova How to Set Financial Goals with Nova - YouTube

Let me know what you think.

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Hi ndrw,

Yes Nova analyses all your expenses and splits them between recurring costs and variable costs.

The default categorisation isn’t perfect, but you can edit it, apply it to all similar transactions which will teach the AI how to categorise it going forward. So the more you use it, the better it gets.

I wish we had the Monzo categorisation through Open Banking… Maybe one day :smiley:.

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Good luck to her getting a mortgage on a £500,000 house with a 5% deposit. Had to laugh at the example :sweat_smile:

Yeah don’t think it’ll be an app I need to use in all honesty though, I definitely don’t fit the use case for this.

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Main page:

In case you’re wondering, we make money through all our users who upgrade the AI of Nova.

FAQ section: Is it free?

Nova will be free for all Alpha testers

You:

How does one *upgrade* an AI?

It’s all just a bit opaque for me.

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Hi tbutz, sorry the FAQ page needs an update :sweat_smile:

Monzo is a free product, that can be upgraded to Monzo Plus if you want. Same for Nova.
Does that clarify things?

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Right so where’s your actual money coming from, who’s backing you in the background.

This makes no sense, why would anyone pay for this when it’s totally free already, from what I gather paying gives nothing else. I’ve not seen a real explanation which clarifies any of this do far.

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Also I noticed on Companies House you’ve renamed / rebranded 4 times now. What did each of those companies back then do, have you always been doing this or was it different products and services with each rebrand?

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@DaveJ, Nova is a freemium app, just like Monzo, Spotify and many consumer products.

A freemium product offers a base service for free, and advanced features when upgrading to a paid plan.

The paid plan of Nova includes advanced analytics, more stats, an extra AI personality, multi-currency support, unlimited history, priority support, etc… And more to come.

Since you seem interested in our history, the company was pursuing other activities, was renamed to Cash Coach in 2019, then in 2020 we raised funding on crowdcube to gamify personal finance.

This year, we decided to pivot the business to financial planning and rebranded to Nova.

And here we are, we just released the first version of goal planning.

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I want to help people who want to learn about personal finance, get out of debt, develop good habits, start investing…

Some users need better analytics to realise how they’re spending their money, some users need a little push to be motivated… everyone is different.

So I get it, you’re not interested. But please stop the passive aggressive tone, because we’re trying to help people who want to be better off with their money.

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In the video Nova calculates that they have £500 per month free.

Why would anyone want to set a goal for the full amount, or even increase it to £1,000 like they did in the example?

What is the smart stuff that it does? In the video it just knows what your average remaining balance is after all your expenditure and then divides this by whatever date and goal amount you set. Or does more stuff happen?

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This should really be mentioned somewhere. I presume you’d get this info if you have the app and there’s a path/option for upgrade, but aside from that (and this thread), how would you know? It’s not on your website. I suspect many would take it up purely on the multi-currency aspect alone.

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You’re preaching to the choir.

You’re on a banking forum. It’s pretty obvious we already know what you’re trying to sell and can do without it.

Also, while you’re trying to promote and sell your business, it’s probably a good idea not to bite at the first sign of criticism.

This isn’t just you that’s doing it, but I hate this “we changed our name, we pivoted” basically reads as rich boys spending someone elses money until they find something that sticks because they don’t want a real job.

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I was just about to say the same. A lot of this may come across as criticism, but as people who have an interest in this sector our thoughts/comments should not be dismissed offhand.

(not the bit about the real job, I disagree with that point, sorry Revels!)

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Hi Ordog,

Good question. Let’s take a simple example and say that you want:
A) To save for a house deposit: £40k for Nov 2023
B) Go on holiday: £2k for Jan 2022
C) Buy the latest iPhone: whenever you can afford

How much do you need to save per month? Can you afford all of that? How realistic would be it to make an extra effort?

The AI of Nova answers all of that with a simple plan. Under the hood, the AI tries to understand your living expense, what are your incompressible costs, see what’s realistic for you, and when you could afford your goals.

But there’s more.

You may actually better off reprioritising your goals in this order to complete all in time:

A) Go on holiday: £2k for Jan 2022
B) Buy the latest iPhone: in Sept 2022
C) To save for a house deposit: £40k for Nov 2023

Why? Because it’s quite often possible to complete smaller savings goals while keeping the same date (or near date) for your longer-term goal.

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