Attitudes toward personal finance are changing. While talking openly about money was once taboo, younger people are happy to share how much they make and the challenges of making ends meet.
It can also feel like the deck is stacked against people relatively new to the workforce, with banks routinely charging higher fees and offering fewer incentives to lower earners.
“Banking is broken in Canada. You pay fees every month unless you have a large balance,” says Ranjit Sarai, who along with fellow Concordia grad Nicolas Dinh founded a no-fee digital bank called STACK, which embeds a social platform into its app, along with tools for saving, budgeting and finding discounts.
“We wanted to provide an alternative that offered as many services and as much value as any other bank account,” says Dinh.
Why personal finance should be more social
Sarai: “Every other bank app is a one-to-one relationship. You don’t benefit from the experience of other customers, so it’s a very solitary experience. We introduced our social platform as a way people could build a community to talk about money in a safe space.”
Greatest business challenges
Dinh: “Initially, getting to market took longer than expected. It took us close to two years to build the business, get it certified, approved and reviewed by the necessary regulators and partner institutions.”
Sarai: “Being an early-stage seed company looking to raise capital in the consumer space is still a big challenge in Canada. As more start-ups in Canada get successful, there is a trickle-down effect, but it’s still way behind the U.S.”
The Concordia effect
Dinh: “I was a part of the Co-op program, which gave me tons of actual industry exposure. One of the internships was in a company that built AI as it relates to voice recognition. I think Apple Siri still uses and licenses a lot of those technologies today.”
Proud career moment
Dinh: “STACK was acquired by Credit Sesame, a leader in personal credit management. They wanted to extend their existing portfolio of services to offer a bank account to their more than 10 million customers, which we think will help us scale up very quickly.”