Q&A with Plum! / Feedback & Updates

Awesome thanks! All set up and ready to save!

There is no limit to the amount you can manually put into Plum.

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Is there anyway to use this without or creating a Facebook account?

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Of course! We would recommend keeping an emergency fund outside of Plum as withdrawals can take up to 1 working day - something we are working on speeding up.

What lot’s of users do it let Plum save and then move it to their own saving accounts or invest it at the end of each month. Please note capital invested is at risk and this is not where we would recommend putting an emergency fund.

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There is indeed!

All the steps are here, give us a shout if you get stuck :relaxed:

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Yay! Welcome to the squad.

For anyone wanting the latest behind the scenes access to Plum, you can join our private Facebook group here.

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Nice one. I’d really love/prefer Google Assistant support, though - that would be magical. :fireworks:

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Watch this space…:wink:

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Seconded on the Google Assistant front.

I struggle with interacting with text-based bots. By contrast, I feel very comfortable with speaking to Google Home to activate various different things.

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Setup surprisingly quick!

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Sorry. Not going to happen.

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Hey plumb! :slight_smile:

Is there any interest provided on what’s saved?

Seems cool I’ll sign up and I’ve it a go.

Forgot to ask what are the differences between you and Chip/ other companies that offer a similar serice? :slight_smile:

Hey Jack!

There is no interest on Plum savings at the moment but you can choose to invest your Plum savings and gain real returns! More info on thathere. Please note capital invested is at risk.

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Our goal here at Plum is helping people grow their savings by helping them manage their money.

Plum helps you manage your personal finances in lots of ways. We focus on helping you save in lots of different ways beyond just autosaving for you. Our AI tech helps you save money automatically like Chip but you can also invest those savings in a range of options rather than getting fixed interest. You can even earn money by referring friends (£25 for every 3 friends). On top of all of that, we make sure you are not being overcharged on things like energy bills and help you switch if you are!

Plus…we have Monzo :wink:

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Hey Plum & Co,

So my main question, coming from someone who has used envelope budgeting for years, is…

What is the benefit of an automating savings system, over utilising a “zero based budget” approach or traditional budgets?

Is there any concern that automating savings / using AI to make financial decisions will have any detriment on the users own engagement with their finances long term?

Thanks :slight_smile:

Oh, edit to add one more: Is there any mechanisms to using Plum without having to have any form of Facebook App on my phone?

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Hey Ben!

Sorry for the super long reply there was a lot to answer, some very interesting questions!

There are a few benefits with using an automated system over these approaches. Of course, ease is one. You do not need to take the time to sit and calculate your budgets and set up Direct Debits, this is all done for you. Another is that because Plum is constantly anaylsing, it is dynamic and always in tune with your finances. This means that if you spend a little more or less one week than usual, Plum automatically adjusts how much it is saving for you without you having to rejig the budget. For our users who don’t have regular fixed incomings and outgoings this can be even more helpful as traditional approaches tend to be more fixed.

Interestingly this is actually how Plum came to be, our founders set themselves a saving challenge pitching traditional methods against Plum 1.0. You can read the story here.

The way we interact with our users encourages them to engage with what is going on with their money. There are daily balance updates and various other notifications and insights which aim to keep you up to date on your finances - although these can all be toggled or turned off completely. We are hoping in the future to get Plum to a point where people can opt in to mini lessons on things like investing etc to become even more financially savvy even without Plums help.

At the moment sadly not but this is something we are working on!

Let us know if you have any other questions :grinning:

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Used Plum since Feb 17 and it is an amazing little Bot, saved so much with it. So happy it is integrated with Monzo, it’s been working great for me since beta testing it a few weeks back with Monzo (and before with my legacy bank)

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Hi, I’ve been using Plum for about a year and very happy Monzo is now connected. My question is about direct debits. Monzo predicts future DD payments and tries to work out what you will spend against given retailers or services. Plum is always taking varying amounts so I wondered if there is improvements coming to the direct debit infrastructure to allow for better predicting of payments? I did read somewhere once that open banking would help with this. I’m not sure what that is exactly. Ta

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Hey Paul :smiley:

Glad you have been loving Plum!

Yes, open banking will allow us to take non-user-present payments at some point meaning that the money will move using faster payments and will reach Plum much faster than direct debit.
Right now there’s no way to use faster payments to move money from a user’s bank account,
only cards or direct debits. For better prediction – plum tries to spread the payments so that the amounts are more even but, of course, sometimes it finds that it can take more or less.

Hope that answers the question!

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