Curve, the London-based Fintech that combines all your cards and accounts into a single smart card and app, introduces its new app interface, the first phase in its longstanding mission to become an OS for money.
The new app has just two tabs, a digital “Wallet,” and a new interface named Launchpad. Launchpad will act as a canvas for Curve apps and third-party integrations. Right now, Curve customers can use Launchpad to smoothly navigate the Curve app and access a host of Curve features such as Anti-Embarrassment Mode, Insights, Rewards and more. In the future, it will be a hub to discover and access a plethora of market leading financial products and services across insurance, savings, investments and more.
“We’re all using different financial products and services, not all of which are best suited to our needs.” said Shachar Bialick, Curve’s Founder and CEO. “With a financial marketplace embedded into Curve, we can realise our ultimate vision – to make everyone smarter with money by giving our customers the tools to make better financial decisions for themselves. Sure, we do that already – enabling customers to earn cashback on top of their existing cards, eliminate travel fees from any bank, and so on. A marketplace will take things further, ensuring our customers get the best deals on all financial products without scrolling through endless comparison sites – it will all be just a tap away.”
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Better, faster, stronger
As more and more features were added to Curve over the years – Anti-Embarrassment Mode, Smart Rules, Curve Flex, Crypto Rewards (to name but a few) – the app became a bit of a minefield for customers to navigate. The new Curve app interface takes a note from the Apple Playbook, introducing applets into the Curve app, which allow users to easily access everything Curve has to offer and more. It also makes it easy to discover and access a whole host of new financial apps offered by third party developers who have partnered with Curve.
Curve has amassed 4.5M customers to date across the UK and EEA and continues to grow with more than 50,000 customers signing up to the platform every month. In addition, thanks to the inventive nature of Curve, it has access to its customers’ entire wallet, enjoying a 360° view over their finances. Most developers don’t have access to the scale and resources Curve has. Curve will solve this problem for all developers.
Curve developed an application which allows developers to deploy their apps, products and services to the Curve OS, accessing Curve’s customer base and resources. Customers in turn can search and download new financial apps to the Curve OS, leveraging the existing payment and financial data Curve has access to which, in turn, enables developers to streamline their value proposition to the right audience at the right time.
Curve believes that going forward, this would be the exclusive way to distribute financial applications to customers. Rather than just launching an app into the ether and acquiring customers using expensive paid channels, customers will have the ability to search and download apps with a tap – all with personal recommendations.
And what’s the business deal? Curve again takes a bow to Apple. It won’t charge hosting fees or marketing fees, and offer a 30%-70% split with the app developers. If the developers want to distribute their apps for free, they can do it. There’s no charge to the developer or the customer. This is by far the best deal to distribute financial applications to customers in the market. Curve can also offer the ability to make payments, and if the developer would like to use Curve’s payment processing capabilities, there will of course be a small fee to cover the cost of the service.
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Curve is in active discussion with some of the biggest names in finance and commerce, to deploy their apps on the new Curve marketplace. Companies wishing to partner with Curve and release their own applets will benefit from a seamless development process using their existing Android App Packages (APK). Developers partnering with Curve, releasing their apps on the Curve marketplace will benefit from a unique access to a large customer base and a host of capabilities, subject to customers’ permission, such as: customers’ KYC, customers’ payment methods (cards and accounts), customers’ financial data, and more.
As Curve is in the early stages of its marketplace it is being highly selective with its partners, and prioritising apps that enable customers to make better financial decisions, save money and/or earn rewards.
The new Curve platform, with the accompanying third-party integration for developers, is a vital step in Curve’s journey to become the OS for money – an all inclusive financial marketplace. The combination of choice and convenience seasoned with high quality financial data takes one giant step to improve competition in finance in the interest of consumers and, ultimately, to empower customers to make the best financial decisions for themselves and their families.
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