Fintech start-up Swave has secured an unrivalled opportunity to benefit from the expertise of Britain’s biggest banking group after recently winning the Consumer Financial Literacy category of an open innovation challenge run by the UK’s innovation agency, Innovate UK.

Swave, founded by Krissy Bordas and Ross Tappin, is developing an app which will sit alongside and complement a personal banking app. Using an algorithm to detect spend on ‘luxuries’ such as meals out and cinema tickets, Swave highlights the opportunity to save either the equivalent amount, or a percentage into a savings account. The app aims to enable users to save little and often towards personal financial goals.

Following Swave’s achievement at the innovation challenge, Lloyds Banking Group’s Digital division invited the start-up to base themselves in the Bank’s a digital hub in London for 12 weeks to benefit from the Bank’s digital experts as they build their proposition.

The Group, which has one of the largest bases of savings customers, 11 million online banking and six million mobile banking customers across its retail brands, has launched a series of digital propositions in recent months and uses in-house innovation labs to continually test potential products and services with customers to identify which will have the greatest positive impact on how they manage their money and engage with the bank.

Swave’s Ross Tappin said: “Being able to base ourselves right in the centre of Lloyds’ innovation team means that we can appreciate first hand the considerations that we need to make to ensure what we’re offering not only offers a great user experience, but that we have the technical capabilities to scale our offering in line with demand.

“As well being able to tap into the experience of people working in the industry, we’ve also had help with the actual look and feel of the app and even been given advice on what we need to think about when hiring new employees as we continue to grow.”

During the 12 weeks being spent with Lloyds, Swave intends to launch a pilot to test the app in advance of a full rollout of the new app early next year.

Marc Lien, Lloyds Banking Group’s Director of Innovation & Digital Development added: “Having supported Innovate UK’s innovation challenge, we were able to see first hand the fantastic potential that Swave’s app will provide to help encourage regular savings and people to manage their money in an easy and convenient way.

“We’re able to share with Krissy and Ross what we have learnt going through similar product and proposition development. In turn, we can understand the different considerations that they are able to make as an innovative start up, making this a great example of the mutual benefit for both banks and Fintechs that collaboration can bring.”