*The Pocketbook app has shut down as of August 2022

Helping Australians manage their money

Pocketbook was founded in 2012 as one of the first ‘PFM’ or personal financial management apps on the Australian market. By connecting to a customer’s bank account and transaction data Pocketbook has been able to transform the way +800,000 Australians stay on top of their money – spreadsheet free.

Pocketbook has come a long way since then, having been acquired by BNPL giant Zip in 2016, but their purpose remains the same:

“At Pocketbook, we want to make sure everyone has the chance to live their best financial life. We made it our business to help our users save smart and spend smarter, without doing much at all. By being able to see all of your accounts in one place, you can analyse your spending to understand where your money really goes and achieve the lifestyle you really want.”

– Tamim Noorzad, Head of Product @Pocketbook

Account aggregation

Pocketbook is a classic example of how aggregated financial data underpins fintech as we know it today. By combining a customer’s live financial data into one view, Pocketbook has been able to help Australians keep track of their money and save nearly $11 million.

As fintechs increasingly turn their attention to data-driven automation to help consumers make better financial decisions, ongoing access to aggregated and categorised financial data is more important than ever before. But access to this data and level of account aggregation is no easy feat … which is why Pocketbook is leveraging Basiq for their relaunch.

Pocketbook 2.0

In order for Pocketbook’s relaunch to be successful, they needed to attract more users. Getting consumers to download their app is only part of the journey. Being able to securely and reliably onboard consumers banking with a wide range of institutions is just as important.

The Basiq platform allows Pocketbook to rapidly onboard new users at scale by providing an ongoing connection to real-time, enriched data from +100 institutions. From consent to categorised transactions, Basiq ensures Pocketbook can seamlessly migrate current users and successfully onboard new ones:

“We relaunched Pocketbook for a better user experience and amazing new features to help Australians achieve their financial goals.” – Tamim Noorzad, Head of product @ Pocketbook

• Using Basiq, Pocketbook can allow users to consent to sharing their account and transaction data from multiple institutions in seconds, with bank-grade security. An ongoing connection to data means Pocketbook can reduce friction in the user journey and customers don’t have to re-consent.
• Basiq returns aggregated data across accounts and institutions so Pocketbook can help users keep track of their money, wherever it’s stored.
• Basiq also helps take the guesswork out of spending by tapping into +50 data sources to identify the merchant, location and category of each bank transaction with +95% accuracy.

For Tamim, it’s not just the Basiq platform that’s important but also the access to a dedicated customer success team:

“We chose Basiq because we want to work with a team that would provide local, dedicated support and who we could trust to scale with us. The great thing with Basiq is that they get our vision and are dedicated to seeing us grow and achieve that mission.”

What Pocketbook customers say

“Since using Pocketbook, I feel more in control of my money… I love that it reminds me if something is unusual, like a forgotten bill payment.”

“I’d just like to say that you guys are brilliant. To create an app of this quality that connects all of my bank accounts and is free too is really appreciated.”

If you’re building a fintech solution and need ongoing access to banking data, get in touch with the Basiq team.