Strands Becoming a Leader in the Personal Finance Management Market

Two of the Largest Banks in the World are Already Using Strands Technology to Offer Their Customers a Better Overview of Their Personal Finance

CORVALLIS, Ore.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Financial services companies that offer personal finance solutions increase their customer retention up to four times more. This proves the importance of relying on this technology to build customer loyalty.

In Spain, BBVA was the first to implement Strands’ technology last November and to launch the Tú Cuentas service. A month after its launch, more than 130,000 users had already tried the tool and to this day, more than 250,000 customers have already improved their personal finance management.

Now, Strands is proud to announce that ING has launched TIM for their customers in the Netherlands. The Dutch bank has chosen Strands technology to offer new services to their customers that allow them to better manage their expenses and income.

For the moment, TIM has been launched in the Dutch market in a private beta and only for a limited number of customers who have applied to participate in this pilot phase. In the future, ING will offer the service to the bank’s online customers in the Netherlands.

The main goal of the new tool is to allow users to have a clear and complete overview of their financial situation. Some of the innovative functionalities of the new tool include:

• Automatic categorization of information: The application automatically categorizes the users’ information into a set of predefined categories that make it easier to manage (for example, food, household...).
• Analysis of a customers’ finances: Based on the categorization, the information is presented to the user in a graphical way, enabling him to analyze his financial situation to better understand what his money is spent on. The customer can see the evolution of his income and expenses in time and print pre-defined reports to consult at any time. The information is displayed on the screen in a simple way that can be easily interpreted at first glance.
• Comparisons with other users: The service also allows users to compare themselves anonymously with other community members of his choice. This helps customers better understand their financial situation and compare it to other collectives that can be useful to him or her.
• Budgets and alerts: The service allows the user to define his own budgets for different expense categories and set up alerts on their evolution by email or SMS.

About Strands

Strands, founded by Spanish scientist Dr. Francisco J. Martin and based in Oregon, is the leading company in social recommendation systems. Strands shareholders include Antonio Asensio, BBVA, Sequel R&D y Debaeque. Strands applies its social recommendation technologies to three fields: personal finance, leisure and business solutions.

Strands offers financial services companies the chance to transform their customers’ online experience thanks to its recommendation technology, which can be easily set-up and integrated in a secure way within banking environments.