The 86400 app follows on the heels of Up Bank, the tearaway neobank leader. Up Bank didn’t just get their product to market first, they actually did a good job of making a splash and getting mad chatter generated online. And they did that by building a digital product first – and the fans came running.
When 86400 put their landing page up, they made a good first impression – of being neat, clean and clutter-free. And their email inviting their wait list to sign up was no different – simple, focused, to-the-point.
86400 – Less is more
So while the other banks – from Bankwest to Up Bank allow users to open multiple “sub-accounts” within their one account, 86400 decided to go the old-fashioned way – You will get two accounts – a savings account and a transaction account, or as they call it, a ‘pay account.’
The sign up process was par for the course – Clean form, no unnecessary data collection, and KYC processes.
I will call out that their signup process was much better than Up Bank. While it took me almost 10 minutes to complete Up’s, it took just about 3 minutes to open an 86400 account – and that too because I couldn’t find my wallet for the driver’s licence.
There was a curious checkbox that asked for consent before doing an Equifax credit file check. The way they explained it, they would only use the Equifax credit file if they weren’t able to use the regular document verification services. They also stressed that the Equifax ping would not be a credit check.
Needless to say, I left the box unchecked…
The only complaint I had about the sign up process was the fact that the SMS verification code did not autofill. On the flip side, it’s testament to a smooth and easy sign up process where the only hiccup was that little bit of Android magic.
86400 app dashboard – It’s so clean!
This is a beautiful dashboard. The icons are clear and intuitive and the important information – bills coming up and savings – up front and clearly presented.
But now I have nothing to do because there is no way for me to spend the money that I would put in. There’s no Google Pay integration until I receive the debit card. The only thing to do is put money in – very clever.
86400 app features – Financial dashboards are here
I get very excited with financial dashboards. IMHO no one has managed to solve the problem of tracking and controlling spends from one central command centre.
Pocketbook came close but no one’s actually done it perfectly. And I believe the neobanks are the right people to build such a product. Which is why I was super excited when Douugh, announced that they were basically building a banking SaaS product. And now here was 86400 with their own financial dashboard.
So with much excitement, I tried to connect my credit card to the 86400 financial dashboard. I started with my Qantas Credit Card.
So 86400 outsourced the login and data-read functionality to (surprise, surprise) Yodlee – the biggest(?) player in this market but not someone you’d call nimble and fast moving.
As someone who uses the points card for all his expenses, this feature is now, effectively of no use to me.
Sigh… moving on.
86400 app features – Experience hiccups
After spending so much time on the app, I was bound to find some oddities. Here they are:
I hate you ‘x button
This was a factor the close ‘x’ being very close to the top of my screen and my not having the slenderest of fingers. I kept opening my menu bar and it took me a minimum of three tries before I could close the window.
Was this not designed natively for Android?!
The notch hides the screen titles – totally hidden. That’s a proper whoopsie!
86400 app features – Bill reminder service
It turns out, 86400 has no way to pay bills. In fact, the lack of BPay integration led to more than a couple of 1-star ratings on the Play Store.
And I think those reviews were completely unwarranted and unfair.
As a proponent of iterative development, I believe 86400 have laid out an excellent roadmap for the BPay rollout. And they’re starting with the feature/functionality that scans my accounts and flags upcoming bill payments.
Here’s how the use case plays out:
- I connect my existing bank/credit card to 86400.
- They act as a pure reminder system warning me that a bill is due.
- I go to my existing bank account and pay that bill. I imagine that I would come back and mark the reminder as ‘Done’
86400 is building a habit forming loop:
- Step 1: The trigger: 86400 reminds you that a bill is due
- Step 2: Action: You go pay the bill from your existing account
- Step 3: Reward: You come back to 86400 and click ‘Complete’
- Step 4: Investment: You’ve now given information about your behaviour to 86400 and, effectively, cued up the next trigger
When they do release their BPay functionality, they would already have primed you to wait for the bill reminder. And then, just like that – They’ll tell you that you can now pay for the bill right here without having to leave the 86400 app.
Final thoughts – Nicely done
86400 stuck to the thumb rule – Keep it simple. The app is lean and light. While I would like to have been able to start using it right away, it’s still early days.
Building a habit-forming product for millennials is going to be key for all neobanks. So I imagine that with 86400, we can expect a lot more GIFs and emojis before they do things like allow my credit card to connect to their systems.
