Nova Money Planner - Q&A

Fortunately I only use Monzo so I have all of the data I need for the app.

Great!

I could do this but I’d like to see my progress towards my savings goal which includes that account’s balance. Maybe not starting the Y axis legend from 0 would work instead?

Great!

I did try this but ultimately the app still sets a deadline, I’d like to not set a deadline at all and then

One other thing I forgot to mention, I couldn’t figure out how the levels are calculated in the profile tab?

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Hi Tom,

AI does make product sound more interesting. But it also helps users to understand what they get. For example when I tested the first prototype of Nova, people were confused to see recommended dates. But when introducing Nova as an AI, people expect the app the app to crunch all their numbers and come up with a recommendation - hopefully smart. So the term AI fits their mental model, and they also understand that the recommendation doesn’t come out of the blue, but is based on their data. So they also understand that they may need to recategorise some transactions.

Decision trees and linear regressions are within the scope Machine learning :laughing: Yet we could argue it’s automation.
Developing machine learning models require tons of data that we don’t have since we’re brand new. So we try to use as much automation as possible. But we had to calibrate some machine learning models because not problem can be solved deterministically.

AI can be very poweful. The problem is that most companies use machine learning to make people spend money (have you watched the Social Dilema?) but I believe we reached the stage where the AI of tech companies have become too strong. Our lizard brain wasn’t designed to thrive in a world of overabundance where we see temptation to spend money non-stop.

So I really want to rebalance the force and build the AI force to help people save and experience the benefit of delayed gratification.

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Yep Nova sends daily motivation messages to keep people focused on their goals. And we have designed 3 personalities so far: Cute, Best Friend - and upon the request of our first users - Ruthless :smiling_imp:.

The Ruthless personality is accessible in the premium version. But few people can handle it :laughing:

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:fire::fire::fire:

Oh I see what you mean. We designed the Accounts screen to be the place you manage your current account + credit card balance. It’s easy to forget about credit card when you don’t add the negative card balance to the current account.

What do you think of the circular progress bar in the Goals screen?

If you want to track how your month is doing, have a look at this video.

And if you want to appreciate your overall progress, then we designed the analytics screen for it.

Ha that’s not supported. How about setting a date far away?

Do you see the marks on the circle: Lvl 2: 0%, Lvl 3: 5%, Lvl 4: 15%, Lvl5: 40%
The levels are based on your yearly % of Wealth creation (money saved or invested).

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Ah ok, I don’t have a credit card.

I like it!

I think I’m just trying to use the feature in a way that’s not intended so I won’t worry about that for now.

I do like the way it’s designed to be integrated with Accounts chart. I can see why it’s useful to set a date for the goal, although if I keep missing it then obviously I’m going to have to update the target date.

Yes.

This is what I was wondering - it’d be good if I could see what % I’d have to hit in order to reach each level in the app I see this now, I missed the Income Saved label before.

By the way, it’d be good if the app remembered which category I personally applied to a merchant’s transaction and applied the same category automatically going forwards (this mirror’s Monzo’s functionality).

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@Revels The web app is fixed - could you retry?

One of the goals (no pun) is to help people realise the impact of their spending towards their goals. For example overspending may delay a goal by 1 month, 2 months, etc… Hopefully, it also shows the value of saving money for what’s meaningful.

When you recategorise a transaction, Nova always asks whether you can to recategorise similar transactions. If you answer yes, it will automatically do it going forward. Isn’t it the behaviour you expect?

By the way, do you still want to track your goals progression through the Accounts chart, or are you happy with the circular charts in Goals?

I’ve just tried and it’s working. Looks really nice

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Why isn’t Nova Money listed as an AISP on the FCA website?

https://register.fca.org.uk/s/search?predefined=AIPISP

I assume it must have appropriate approval for banks to give access to their APIs. Does this not require registration as an AISP?

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Nova Money Ltd is an approved AISP agent of TrueLayer and registered with the FCA. We wouldn’t be able to access the Open Banking APIs if we were not authorised ;).

:heart:

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@Sam.Abrika Would be useful if it could display the Notes field from Monzo to aid if I want to change the category?


Ps Would like a category for Entertainment :wink:

Edit: This bit doesn’t seem to be working correctly?


I’ve selected the option shown because the drop down doesn’t show my current tariff (Redwood).

Ps this is with Green.

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More - selecting Broadband here only brings up the Energy options:

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Yes it is, I think the app sees Amazon as multiple separate merchants so maybe that’s why it didn’t work as expected.

How would it look in the Accounts tab?

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Hi Colin :wave:

Yes that would be really a good user experience. We could easily do it if Monzo includes the transactions notes as metada in the Open Banking APIs.
:monzo: team, if you’re reading this, can you please share the suggestion to your engineering team?

We called it Fun - it’s shorter. Did you find it?

I tried this morning with Green and it seemed to work. Could you retry? I’ll escalate the issue if it persists.

You’re right! Thanks for reporting the issue, this one should be an easy fix.

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Found the Fun, still trying to find my way back to the Reduce my Bills section.

Edit: Found it - Track > Bills > Botton of the page.

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Still issues. Here’s what I’m using:

Starting here:


Not formatted correctly for my screen - should look like this?

Apply these options and then try find my tariff (Redwood):

Another badly formatted screen and Redwood isn’t listed.

So select the ‘I’m not sure’ option and hit enter:

And that’s when the error happens (with another incorrectly formatted screen)

Should look like this:

Think that covers it?

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On Web App I am struggling to connect to First Direct. Known issue?

Email verification has timed out. R-

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True. Amazon has several legal entities and uses several merchant identifiers. It depends if you buy from Amazon marketplace, etc… We can try to unify that in the future.

I was referring to our conversation where you liked to toggle on all your accounts in the Accounts chart to track your savings progress :smiley:. Do you still want to do it after a day of use, or are you happy tracking your goals in the Goals screen?

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@Dunsford awesome, I’ll share that with homebox so they could fix it and will let you know.

@RogerB That’s possible, the web app is at an early stage. This was required many times so we mostly want to know if it’s something that people really want to use before we invest in making it as good as the app.
Have you tried to connect First Direct through the app?

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Great!

Ah I see, I would still like to keep all of my accounts switched on in that chart tbh because the line graph gives me a good sense of whether my savings are growing / decreasing over time and by how much.

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Not yet. It’s on my list for tomorrow. R-

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