Last April, Julien Arnold quietly left his role as CEO of Numbrs, the mobile-first banking app he co-founded with Swiss company builder Centralway. Now, almost a year on, he’s on the verge of launching his next project: Clinc, a mobile app to make it easier to save money for a future purchase or financial rainy day.
Using what Arnold describes as a “dynamic intelligence algorithm,” Clinc promises to track your current account spending and analyse the results to find the optimum amount to save each month, which is then automatically deposited into your Clinc savings account underpinned by the startup’s partner bank.
The secret sauce, which he won’t go into much detail on, is that the app is dynamic, able to make on-the-fly adjustments to how much you transfer to your savings account based on how your spending has changed or is predicted to change.
In other words, Clinc’s central proposition is to help you achieve your financial goals faster. “This is the biggest challenge you can tackle in financial technology,” says Arnold.
So, for example, you could tell the app you want to save up to purchase a new iPhone. Clinc will then analyse your current account and determine how much money you can afford to set aside each month. Should your expenses rise due to, say, an increase in your rent or car payments, the app will adjust your savings rate automatically.
“Once Clinc has calculated the perfect amount for the user to set aside, it is automatically transferred to a Clinc account, fully owned by the user, of course,” explains Arnold. “This account lies with our partner bank and can be opened up within only two minutes”.
With that said, Clinc is still operating in stealth mode, with a limited closed beta. The newly outed startup is planning a full launch in Germany in the middle of this year, and international availability, including the U.K. and U.S., sometime in 2017.
On why he chose to leave Numbrs, Arnold had this to say: “I saw a great opportunity with Clinc and wanted to focus on building this new venture. Clinc’s added value for the user is immense. We are changing the economical behaviour of the user by helping him reach financial goals faster.”
He also says that Numbrs continues to operate under the management of Centralway.