ROTTERDAM – last week, the Rotterdam-based Fintech start-up Buddy Payment has officially received its PSD2 license from DNB. The permit allows the entrepreneurs to use their banking platform to support vulnerable people with finances and allowances.
With the obtaining of the license, Buddy Payment is officially the first Payment Institution in the social domain. As early as 2017, the entrepreneurs from Rotterdam started building a banking environment to help people make financial choices and preventing debts.
The start-up uses the new European directive for payment services, PSD2. This legislation makes it possible to access the payment history of users after their provisioning of consent. The Buddy-app uses this historical data to make predictions about future expenses and to budget automatically. In this way, fixed charges are always paid on time and the user sees exactly what he or she actually has left to spend this month. The Buddy-app also uses the payment data to estimate income in order to assess the user’s right on financial entitlements. For example, it might happen that a small change in income has a major impact on the allowances a person is entitled to. The Buddy-app anticipates on this by sending the user a simple push notification. This way, the start-up unburdens the user, but also protects them from substantial additional assessments by the Tax and Customs Administration. Of course, Buddy Payment requires the user’s explicit consent upfront, in order to provide these services.
Currently 89 municipalities are involved in a tender for an innovative application that provides financial assistance, in which Buddy Payment is participating. In addition, various debt counselors and healthcare institutions will start using the Buddy-app in May in a way to innovate and scale their services. Other businesses are also interested in offering Buddy to their employees that experience financial stress.