App of the Week: Yolt

Welcome back to our weekly spotlight on helpful apps. We focus on a variety of products that are useful for work, personal use, or both, providing our own thoughts on the apps and what you can do with them. This week put all our finances in one place with Yolt.

An intro to Yolt
In the world of smartphones, smart watches and even smart fridges, smart banking is a growing force. From Barclays to Santander, plenty of banks are embracing the digital age by introducing their own apps and every bank has an internet presence, but many miss the point of the smart revolution. Yolt looks to be the solution to your busy life. By tracking your income and expenditure across bank accounts, it aims to streamline banking and, in its own words, ‘unthink money.’

Powered by banking company ING, the app looks to appeal to millennials on a budget, hoping to help reduce the stress as much as possible through compartmentalising and simplifying your outgoings. Designed similarly to fitness apps that track your calorie intake, the app lets users set budget goals and can track various expenses including eating out, shopping and transport automatically, giving you a ‘real income’ based on how much money you can spend until pay day.

Our review
Provided you’ve already enabled online banking with your accounts, the app is very straightforward to get to grips with. Telling users to ‘unthink money’ is a little inaccurate though; a better slogan would be ‘understand money’, as it helps identify just where all your dosh goes per month. When it comes to using it for business, the app is still in early days and doesn’t yet support those with irregular pay days, but for those with a monthly income it gives you a lot of freedom. The game changer is the ability to track different debit and credit cards from different banks all in one place instead of having to access everything individually, and it’s all secured behind a pin lock.

The verdict
It was surprising just how accessible the app is, and how simple it makes your finance. Rather than unthinking money, it will lead to you thinking more about what you spend and make smarter, more informed decisions with your money.

You can download the app for free on Apple and Android devices, and you can find more info on its website.