Having analysed Google Play Store data, App Radar, an app store optimisation and marketing platform, named 10 most popular apps in the UK investment, savings, and pension management sector. The leader of the ranking is Plum, with 381,000 downloads on Google Play Store since March 2020 and 80% growth during the pandemic. Freetrade placed second, scoring 87% growth and 319,500 new users. The third spot went to a more traditional investment service provider, Hargreaves Lansdown. The study also noted that the number of UK users investing via apps now totals 3.2 million. And this growth isn’t stopping anytime soon — May 2021 alone saw 140,000 new users downloading investment apps. “With an estimated 12% of UK adults now investing via their smartphones, there’s a strong commercial incentive to create new app offerings and this is likely to drive even faster growth. It would not be a surprise to see the vast majority of UK adults using at least one investment app in the next five years,” predicts Thomas Kriebernegg, CEO & Co-Founder of App Radar.

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The Buy Now, Pay Later firm Payl8r has raised £40 million funding from Conister Bank. The funds will be used to expand its customer base, partner with larger brands, spread into more sectors, and develop new products. These plans are in line with Payl8r’s ambitions to become a £1 billion FinTech business within five years and the leading credit provider to UK millennials, competing with such big players as Klarna. The company has already observed a 334% growth between 2020 and 2021. It has also doubled its staff numbers year-over-year since 2016 when it launched. The deal with Conister Bank is said to potentially generate another £40 million pounds for Payl8r, which would surely propel the company’s further growth.

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Ambitions also run high at Flock, a startup offering a real-time insurance product for connected vehicles. The company has secured $17 million in funding in a Series A round led by Social Capital. The investment firm is run by the chairman of Virgin Galactic Chamath Palihapitiya, known for his tech investments, including in Slack, Tesla, and Bitcoin. He commented, “Flock is bridging the gap between today’s insurance industry and tomorrow’s transportation realities. Flock has the potential to help unlock and enable a truly autonomous world, and even save lives.” The Series A round has brought the startup’s total funding to $22 millions. Flock is going to use its newly acquired funds to expand to more markets in Europe with its flagship insurance for car rental platforms, courier companies, and corporate fleets. Apart from the insurance policy, the startup provides its customers with data-driven insights into reducing their driving risks and rewarding them for improving their safety on the roads. Flock also plans to grow its workforce and develop new products.

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The cashback app Swipii has released another feature to help local businesses attract lost customers. Retailers can now use the Win-Back Offer to specifically target customers who haven’t visited their business in a while. Swipii’s technology analyses the data to determine which users fit selected criteria. Then this customer group will automatically receive a special cashback offer in the app to encourage them to go back to their local cafe, bar, or restaurant. The Win-Back Offer doesn’t require much engagement from the businesses in question, other than indicating how much they want to offer in cashback. The app takes care of the rest of the process. Swipii has already proved that its easy-to-use cashback offerings can have real impact on businesses. Since its launch in 2018, it has generated £440,000 spend, while during lockdown the businesses on Swipii recorded on average a 16% increase in customer spend.

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The financial messaging services provider SWIFT announced the launch of SWIFT Go. The new service facilitates low-value cross-border payments for SMEs and consumers who can use it to send money quickly and securely all over the world, directly from their bank accounts. The seamless experience offered by SWIFT’s solution is supposed to help banks gain a market advantage as international payments become easy and competitively priced, with clear, upfront information about processing time and costs. SWIFT Go is already in use by seven global banks — BBVA, Bank of New York Mellon, DNB, MYBank, Sberbank, Société Générale, and UniCredit — which collectively process 33 million low-value cross-border payments yearly.

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If you reach for your digital wallet than the physical one more and more often these days, this news will be of special interest to you. Credit provider NewDay has launched Bip, the UK’s first 100% cardless consumer credit proposition. The offering moves the whole credit experience to the app. Customers can apply for Bip via the app and get the credit set up within minutes, without waiting for their card and PIN to arrive in mail. As Sharvan Selvam, Commercial Director at NewDay, points out, “It is a proposition designed to make credit easy to access, simple to use and, importantly, puts the customer in full control.” Indeed, Bip’s users can better manage their expenses by setting spending limits and alerts. The app is also equipped with a Payment Calculator so customers can assess how increased repayments might help them save on interest. The offering falls right in step with the growing cashless trend, which NewDay has experienced first-hand. The provider observed a rise in the digital wallet and contactless use of its other products, going up from around 8% in August 2020 to 20% in June 2021 across customer retail spending.

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