" class="no-js "lang="en-US"> Nude wants to make saving for a first home fairer, easier and faster
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Nude wants to make saving for a first home fairer, easier and faster

Nude is a new finance app that’s specifically designed to help people reach a major life goal — buying their first home. Their aim is to make it easier for aspiring homeowners to build their deposit, so they can buy their home sooner.

On top of many other features, what makes Nude unique is that it’s the first finance app in the UK that uses time as a motivator. In the app, Nude helps customers set how much they’ll need for a deposit and within seconds Nude then shows how long it could take to get there. No need for spreadsheets and calculators.

They can then track their progress with the in-app countdown and see how the money they put aside impacts the time it’ll take them to buy a home.

“Our early customers keep telling us how motivated the countdown makes them feel”, Crawford Taylor, Nude’s CEO and Co-founder said. “By transforming ‘how much you need’ into ‘when you’ll buy your home’ we’re making it real. No one’s excited about handing over a deposit worth thousands of pounds. But when they can picture themselves collecting their keys and decorating their own space, they want to experience it sooner and so, feel encouraged to save more.”

Like other popular budgeting apps, users can connect their bank account to Nude to track their spending and take control of their finances. But Nude takes it a step further with savings and investment accounts, money from the government to boost customer’s contributions and unique actionable ideas and features that aim to help their customers buy a home in less time.

For example, Nude analyses customer’s spending to give them personalised ideas and habit-building challenges that could knock months or even years off their time to buy.

They’re also launching their first-to-market ‘Team up’ feature — where couples, family members or even best friends buying a place together can both work towards building their deposit while tracking their combined time to goal. Plus they’ll receive double the government bonus when they both open a Nude Lifetime ISA.

This is all supercharged with Nude’s Lifetime ISAs. Nude customers can choose to save in cash or invest in a sustainable fund and receive a government bonus of up to £1,000 per year towards their home for free. This 25% government bonus can be a huge help for people looking to boost their deposit and reduce the time it’ll take to buy their home.

Nude CEO and Co-founder Crawford Taylor, was previously a senior partner at the actuarial, investment and risk management firm Hymans Robertson, where he spent decades helping older generations prepare for retirement. Driven by the unfair disadvantage of those without someone financially savvy in their life, he spotted the challenges his children faced saving and made it his mission to put more young people in control of their money and reach their financial milestones.

Crawford Taylor CEO and Co-founder of Nude commented: “There’s a lot of noise out there telling people how difficult it is to buy a home. We all know it’s not easy but this constant sense of doom is enough to make anyone feel discouraged. With Nude, we want to cut through that noise and instead, give people support, tools and encouragement to show them they can do it. Saving for your first home should be a fun and exciting time. My daughter, who has never saved before, told me she gets a kick of serotonin when she gets a push notification from Nude about her Lifetime ISA bonus arriving. I want more people to feel that.”

A large part of keeping customer’s engaged and excited comes from how Nude looks and sounds. Early on, Taylor brought on Marty Bell as Co-Founder and CMO to craft the brand and app into something unique in the finance space. Bell is Founder of two other viral products — music project Poolside FM and Tens sunglasses.

Marty Bell, Co-Founder and CMO at Nude stated: “Instead of going for typical ‘fintech blue’ we looked to brands like Headspace and Made.com for inspiration. We even took inspiration from our friends — that one person in the group who always has their sh*t together, and the way that they speak, and the art they have on the walls at their effortlessly-well-styled home. This has all come together in everything from the little animations in the app, to the way we explain stuff like Lifetime ISAs, stamp duty and more. We’re going over-the-top on experience and if the feedback from our customers is anything to go by, they’re loving it. We’ve been told it looks like an interiors brand which really connects with people who want to buy and decorate their own home. I’ve learned a lot from building lifestyle brands and communities and it’s a fun challenge to apply all that to finance.”

When it comes to fees, Nude, as its name suggests, is fully transparent. There’s a £2 membership fee that gives customers access to all the features in the app that could help them save thousands of pounds every year. This fee means Nude doesn’t have to get into any nasty business like selling customer data or hitting users with surprise account charges.

If a customer decides to invest there’s also a 0.35% platform fee, and if Nude helps a customer get a new service or better deal, say save money on energy bills, they receive a fee or commission for this, after costs, Nude will share any profit with the customer.

Nude’s app features include:

  • Government-boosted savings and investment accounts (available now): Account for first-time home buyers with a 25% boost from the UK government.

  • Time to goal (available now): Customer’s can set a goal, how much they can put aside each month and Nude shows them how long it’ll take to get there.

  • Property finder (available now): If someone doesn’t know how much their deposit should be, Nude can work it out for them using UK house prices that flex in real-time.

  • Challenges and ideas (available now): Personalised ideas and challenges helping people save on the small stuff that all adds up. (E.g. ‘Mission Fakeaway’ for people who could save on takeout).

  • Team up (coming in June): Allows users to connect their account with a partner in-app so they can work towards building a deposit together while tracking their combined time to goal. Plus they’ll receive double the government bonus.

  • Bills switcher (coming soon): Nude automatically finds a better deal for gas, electricity and broadband, allowing users to push those savings towards their first home.

  • Impact checker (coming soon): A function that calculates the cost of things users want to buy and how much time it’ll add to their first home countdown.

Nude’s features can have much more of an impact than interest rates alone and so, Nude doesn’t aim to compete with other fintechs and banks on the basis of interest rate.

In a recent mailer to customers, they wrote:

“With UK interest rates at their lowest in decades, choosing an account for its interest rate isn’t as worthwhile as it used to be. For example, if you saved £1,000 with a rate of 0.5%, you’d get just £5 each year. Every penny helps, but we want to help you save a lot more than an extra fiver. What if we could help you save ten times that? Or a hundred times that?”

At its core, that’s what Nude is all about: Helping people take ownership of their finances, so they can one day own a home.

Nude has more accounts add money-saving features launching this year and plans to take on more of life’s big financial goals in the future.

People In This Post

Companies In This Post

  1. FusionIQ Launches FIQ Market One, Disrupting Traditional Investment Marketplaces Read more
  2. Sandbox Banking and Plaid Partner to Strengthen Identity Verification and Elevate Banking Solutions Read more
  3. SCAP and Zwipe partner to bring biometric access cards in France Read more
  4. Central Bank Boosts Financial Wellness for Customers Through Personetics’ AI-powered Platform Read more
  5. BIBF and Cambridge Institute of Islamic Finance Launch the 8th Annual Edition of the Cambridge Islamic Finance Leadership Programme in August 2024 Read more