We’re set on shaking up financial wellbeing and making expert financial guidance available to everyone whatever your income level, life stage, or financial situation. After conducting hundreds of 1-to-1 interviews, and months of research and testing, we started building a platform that connects you to a finance professional where you can ask any questions that you like and get some clarity for your financial life. Bippit is a benefit that your employer provides - so for you, there’s no cost to use our platform.

We’ve dedicated ourselves to creating the best financial care available,  which includes access to a dedicated expert to make managing personal finances simple. You can forget having to make time-consuming appointments, Bippit is yours to use wherever you are, 24/7. You also won’t have to spend weeks trying to find the right person to speak to. Bippit connects you with an impartial finance professional who is perfectly matched to suit your experience and needs, so you can start improving your financial future with confidence.

Our mission might seem ambitious - building a service to manage your entire financial life, and making a dedicated expert available to everyone, but it’s essential we succeed. Poor financial wellbeing is having a huge impact on us as individuals - it’s the number one cause of stress in the UK, and a major factor in depression and anxiety issues. It’s also costly for business - around 15% of payroll is lost each year as a result of poor financial wellbeing -  that’s about £250k for every 50 members of staff. With access to the right financial support, at the time you need it most, everyone one of us could be up to £50k wealthier over ten years. That benefit should not be restricted to the wealthiest in society - so we’re democratising the world of financial guidance for the benefit of all.  

The idea to build a platform that solves the problem of poor financial wellbeing came from the experiences of our founders, where they mismanaged their finances because of a lack of financial education and resources when they were growing up. This is their story...

Sam Lathey, Co-Founder & CEO

You could say that the journey to Bippit’s creation started many years ago for Sam, when he was fresh out of university and working as a self-employed musician. Like a lot of us in our early 20’s, Sam wasn’t very clued up when it came to managing money. After struggling for some time with budgeting, and amassing some debts, Sam decided to make a change. He wanted to break the cycle of debt and remove the stress that came with the money troubles, and so he had to make a tough decision to move on from being a musician to try to get in a stronger financial position.  

Now, with over ten years of experience as a Wealth Manager and Financial Advisor, managing almost a billion pounds of investments, Sam has worked with a wide variety of clients advising them on how to manage their money best. But he still remembers how it felt to be a struggling musician with ever-increasing debts, “I felt like I couldn’t speak with my friends as there was so much stigma attached to poor finances, and I didn’t want to worry my family. The problem was that I didn’t have anyone impartial to ask for help or advice.”

You could say that his ‘behavioural baggage’ from harder times mean that Sam has a deeper understanding of the importance of accessible financial support. Having seen the benefit of receiving good advice first hand, Sam set out to create a service that brings those benefits to as broad an audience as possible. “We want Bippit to be available to every employee in the UK. We know how important financial wellbeing is to your happiness, and the effect poor finances can have on your mental health, getting non-judgemental support can make a huge difference.”

Although Bippit is a fast-growing startup, Sam already has big plans for its future. "I want everyone, regardless of their wealth or status, to be able to avoid dangerous money pitfalls and improve their financial situation, to ultimately achieve their full potential and get the most out of life. Bippit is there to take the guesswork out of managing our finances, so we can all build a better future."

Erich Schudt, Co-Founder & CTO

Erich is our master Technologist. He’s a computer scientist with an extensive background in software engineering and built many systems for enterprises while at Accenture. What he doesn’t know about Tech isn’t worth knowing! Erich saw what was happening in the fintech industry right from the beginning, and had a deep ambition to bring his software engineering skills to help more people, not just large businesses.

He decided to join the London based fintech Curve, which he was instrumental in growing from just 10,000 users to over 400,000 at the time of his departure. Erich is passionate about Open Banking and states “[Open banking] is key to secure data management. It’s what Bippit is built on. It’s trustworthy too, so it means we can do more to push innovative boundaries, modernise the financial wellness industry and help more people than ever before.”

Erich has ensured that Bippit’s platform is not just safe and secure; it’s intuitively designed to make using its features as straightforward as possible. “Bippit needed to be accessible for everyone to use, no matter their lifestyle or financial literacy level. I knew it had to be packed with useful features, like the Advisor Mail, and Goal tracking, but it also needed to be cost-effective for the end-user. We’ve managed to hit all those targets, plus more to make it free for employees.”

Now Erich uses Bippit to manage his own finances, “just like if you’re unwell you go to the Doctor, if you need financial guidance you come to Bippit! I use it to manage my saving goals and to keep me on track. Being able to ask my advisor about anything that I see on the news that I think might affect my goals is a huge advantage!”

Grace Tolley-Smith, Co-Founder & CPO

Grace is our superstar Head of Product. Similarly to Sam’s background, Grace grew up in a household where money wasn’t openly discussed. It was just one of those things that if you had, you could spend it on enjoying yourself. So that’s what she did. It’s a familiar story:  despite having a well-paying job in Asset Management and Investment Consulting, Grace’s expenditure outstripped her saving. Her lack of financial awareness at a young age led her into bad spending habits, and it wasn’t that she didn’t know how about finance; it’s more that she fell into a wrong pattern and didn’t have anyone to guide her to better financial wellness.

She reached a point in her life where she wanted to shift away from short-term enjoyment and move towards long-term security. “I knew I wanted to break my bad habits and needed to set goals for my future, like buying a house and starting a family, but I wasn’t entirely sure of how to pay off my debts and get in a much better financial situation. Speaking with an advisor changed all of that for the better.”

Deciding to help build Bippit was more than just a career move for Grace. Having had some regrets about her spending in the past, she wanted to help create a platform that would stop other people from making the same mistakes, and allow everyone to get in better financial shape for their futures. She notes “it’s been great to get impartial and non-judgemental advice and speak freely about my money, and saving goals. I want to make sure as many people as possible can access that expert advice too.”

As you can see, Bippit was created to plug a very real gap in the market. The need for everyone to be able to discuss their money, confidentially with an expert in a safe space, and to become more financially secure.

We’re building a future where you can get guidance on your entire financial life, on-demand, whenever you need it. Where your pension contributions, saving, investing, ISA subscriptions, credit card payments and everything in between can all be optimised, leaving you to get on with the fun things in life!

Speak to us about getting Bippit for your team, today!