SHIFT Community Update #52
From insight to action in financial behaviour
Hey SHIFT Community,
Over the past few months, we’ve been seeing a subtle but important shift in how people save, build wealth, and engage with their money.
While policy changes like the upcoming Cash ISA reforms are beginning to play a role, the more meaningful transformation is happening at the product level. Financial tools are no longer just tracking behaviour, they are actively shaping it.
The result is a reorientation of financial services around consistency, confidence, and resilience, rather than short-term gains.
In this edition, we spotlight Doconomy and how they’re approaching behaviour change and financial wellbeing in practice, alongside key developments shaping how people save, act, and build for the long term. We’re also highlighting upcoming community events, and some exciting Woodhurst updates.
🔍 From awareness to action in financial behaviour
Financial wellbeing tools are evolving beyond passive tracking into active behavioural intervention.
In the UK, an estimated 28 million adults are now using AI tools to manage their money, from budgeting to savings planning, making personal finance one of the most embedded use-cases for everyday AI adoption.
At the same time, fintechs are increasingly focused on influencing behaviour in real time. Apps like Monzo and Plum use automated savings rules, nudges, and challenges (e.g. round-ups or 1p saving) to help users build better financial habits.
This shift is also extending beyond day-to-day spending into longer-term products. On the lending side, platforms such as Sprive use personalised insights and automation to help users pay down mortgages faster, embedding behavioural support across the broader financial journey.
What this means in practice
Real-time insights, nudges, and automation are enabling more deliberate financial decisions
Behaviour change is becoming a measurable outcome, not just a feature
The competitive advantage is no longer insight, it’s intervention
What this shows is that financial services are starting to guide decisions day to day, not just inform them.
🛡️Financial behaviours driving resilience, not just growth
With 51% of UK adults concerned about financial security risks, improving day-to-day money management is no longer just about building wealth, it’s about building resilience.
Regulators are reinforcing this shift. Frameworks like Consumer Duty are pushing firms to demonstrate good customer outcomes, particularly for financially vulnerable groups, accelerating the move toward solutions that genuinely improve financial resilience.
This is raising expectations for how products are designed. Firms now need to deliver stability and confidence through:
Incremental, automated saving behaviours that build financial buffers over time
Greater focus on short-term liquidity alongside long-term optimisation
This also raises a critical question: are firms genuinely improving financial resilience, or simply optimising engagement metrics?
As behavioural tools become more powerful, the line between guidance and influence becomes increasingly important.
Measurable resilience is quickly becoming a core standard in financial wellbeing, not just something firms talk about.
📈Long-term impact becomes a core dimension of value
Fintechs are supporting this shift by using data, technology, and behavioural insight to reshape how people manage their money, shifting from reactive finance to something more proactive.
Examples from our SHIFT members illustrate this in practice:
ApTap is helping users take control of recurring household costs by identifying savings opportunities and simplifying switching, supporting better long-term outcomes through proactive cost management.
Sprive is helping users overpay their mortgages through automated savings, cashback and behavioural nudges, enabling faster repayment and stronger long-term financial resilience.
Cushon is making long-term savings more engaging and accessible through workplace pensions, combining simple investment tools with greater transparency and control over how money is invested.
The common thread is that long-term impact is becoming a core part of how value is defined, shaping both product design and how customers engage.
🏗️ The Build Series
For the fifth instalment of the Build Series, we sat down with Doconomy, one of our SHIFT members driving behavioural change through tools that connect everyday spending with its wider financial and environmental impact.
1. What actually resonates with users when trying to shift spending or saving behaviours?
Desire. Not guilt, not data, not another nudge toward a generic savings pot. We activate a specific dream - a holiday, a home, a version of life someone actually wants - and build a gamified journey toward it that makes micro-sacrifices feel like progress rather than deprivation. The emotional investment becomes self-reinforcing: small wins create positive loops, which create habits, which create customers who stay and grow. The numbers bear it out - 28% of users had no savings habit before, 73% convert to bank products within a year, and 15.8% of new customer acquisition comes through shared group dreams. When desire leads, behaviour follows.
2. Where are you seeing the most meaningful progress, and what still feels like intention?
The most meaningful progress is happening where banks have stopped treating carbon data as a sustainability metric and started treating it as a customer intelligence layer. Spend-based carbon data reveals desire, risk appetite, lifestyle priorities, and financial opportunity in ways traditional data simply doesn’t. When framed around how someone wants to live - not how carbon-conscious they are - engagement follows, even from customers who wouldn’t describe themselves as sustainably minded. That’s a fundamentally new way to understand and serve a customer. By contrast, green investment ETFs and sustainable finance products signal good values but rarely embed into daily life or give customers anything actionable to work with. They differentiate on paper. The institutions moving fastest are the ones recognising that personal carbon data isn’t a reporting obligation - it’s a relationship asset. That understanding is still rare, which is exactly why the gap between leaders and the rest is opening so quickly.
3. How do you see financial services evolving as sustainability, data, and wellbeing converge?
We’re approaching a moment where your bank knows not just what you earn and spend, but what you care about - and acts on it. Financial services becomes life infrastructure: agents that coach, nudge, and invest on your behalf toward goals that are personal and planetary at once. Less visibly but perhaps more significantly, spend-based carbon data - derived from the transaction layer banks already own - is emerging as a compliant, consented, and remarkably rich data asset. Layered into KYC and customer intelligence frameworks, it expands what banks know, deepens the relationship, and builds infrastructure that’s harder to leave and harder to replicate. The standard for all of this is being set right now. Doconomy is helping to set it. The institutions in that conversation are pulling ahead. The ones watching from the outside are already playing catch-up.
Woodhurst Updates
🤝Finyx merges with Woodhurst to deliver enhanced capabilities
Finyx has joined forces with Woodhurst, bringing together deep domain expertise and technology to deliver stronger, more integrated solutions. The partnership will enable Woodhurst to combine strategic advisory with hands-on implementation to better support clients through increasingly complex transformation challenges. Watch the Podcast here to listen to Finyx and Woodhurst talk about it in detail.
🪙Savings Whitepaper
Woodhurst’s latest Savings Whitepaper explores how building societies can stay competitive in an increasingly commoditised market - by combining trusted relationships, seamless digital journeys, and data-led engagement to drive sustainable, long-term growth. Read here.
📅Events
🎟️ London VC Summit (Partner event)
SHIFT has partnered with London Venture Capital Network to offer discounted access to the London VC Summit, taking place on 15 May at Guildhall.
Including 1,600+ attendees, 80 family offices, 600 investors, 800 innovators. Confirmed participants include Lightspeed, Accel, JP Morgan, British Business Bank, EBRD, Julius Baer, Molten Ventures, and London Stock Exchange Group.
For startups: Exhibitors receive 3 tickets, a pitch opportunity, and direct exposure to investors in attendance, including leading local and global firms.
Secure your tickets (discounts apply automatically at checkout):
See you there!
⚽ Fintech Sports Opportunities
Looking to connect with peers across fintech in a more engaging way? There are two upcoming opportunities to get involved:
🏆 Fintech Football Champs (London)
The flagship weekly football league featuring 50+ fintech and tech companies including Monzo, Starling, Wise, Mastercard, Visa and more. Sign up here.
Next season kicks off: 21 May
Limited availability: 4 team spaces remaining
🎾 Padel Tournament (Amsterdam)
A one-day tournament on the morning of Money 20/20, ideal for networking outside the conference environment.
Date: 3 June (morning)
If your team is interested, reach out to get involved.