British AI-powered savings Facebook Messenger chatbot Plum is to start steering users that are willing to take on risk in exchange for higher interest rates to P2P lender Ratesetter.
According to Moneyfacts, the average UK rate on easy-access accounts is 0.15%, while the average return earned by RateSetter investors to date is 4.7%.
Developed by Victor Trokoudes and Alex Michael, part of the early teams at TransferWise and Tictail, Plum connects to a user's bank accounts to analyse daily spending and puts aside spare funds every couple of days.
The money goes into users' Plum savings account but the Ratesetter deal means that people can also now choose to earn a better rate - if they are willing to take on the associated risk.
Says Trokoudes: "A quarter of people in Britain don’t save according to recent figures from ING. One reason for this is because people don’t see instant and significant benefits from high street banks - these savings accounts as we know them are dead and rendered useless by many consumers, particularly millennials."