NatWest, in a further push to providing new features and upgrades to users, as a means of growing its userbase has now introduced a new app that would help the users to split their home rent with their roommates.
This app is free and it is not necessary for the users to have NatWest accounts to use this app and the fact that the app doesn’t have any reliance on NatWest or its services at this time shows that this could be a new strategy from the bank to draw in users by giving them user-friendly features. The need for such an app cannot be debated as it solves one of the practical problems faced by many users who may not be able to reach out to their mates to demand their share of the rent or the bills or their mates may be out of town.
By setting up such sharing within a mobile app, the respective users will automatically get reminders and they would be able to pay their share of the bills without the other mates having to go through the uncountable task of remaining them. The new app is named ‘HouseMate’.
“From our research, we found that a good proportion of those in shared accommodation finds sorting finances frustrating and awkward,” Wendy Redshaw, chief digital information officer of Retail Banking DigiTech at NatWest said. “With Housemate, we have created a one-stop-shop for renters to simplify this experience, enabling those in shared accommodation to manage their joint finances smoothly and at any time.”
The app uses the Experian open banking platform to keep track of the payments and also find out which user still has pending payments and those users would be sent reminders periodically. The users can also link their accounts to the app to make their payments. This seems to be one more application of the open banking platform and APIs which are being extensively used all across Europe to give users more transparency and control over their financial data. This has also helped many fintech companies to build new apps and features over this financial data which has given rise to innovative and useful products over the last few months with many users preferring these digital alternatives.
