An interview with Paul Tagell, head of marketing at UpBank, about features of this digital bank, their business model and why people might want to choose UpBank. Keep reading for the full interview where I ask the hard questions.
CaptainFI is not a Financial Advisor and the information below is factual review information, not financial advice. This website is reader-supported, which means we may be paid by advertising on the site, or when you visit links to partner or featured sites. For more information please read my Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Financial Disclaimer.
Introduction
After I published the UpBank review article, I reached out to the team behind Up Bank to have a chat. I have been chatting to Paul Tagell who is their head of marketing, and he schooled me on a bunch of stuff I got wrong about them (whoops) and also let me know about a bunch of other cool features I hadn’t discovered yet (like pay splits).
To give Up Bank a chance to talk a bit more about their bank, its features and how someone on the path to Financial Independence can use them, as well as put the hard questions on them regarding data retention (and similar tricky subjects), I gave Paul a long list of questions to answer.
An interview with Paul Tagell from UpBank:
What is your position, experience and investment in Up Bank?
My name is Paul Tagell, and I’m the Head of Marketing for Up. I’ve worked for Ferocia since before Up was launched. We’re a small team, so everyone chips in to make sure things run smoothly. I don’t hold any equity in Up.
What is Up bank, and what is a ‘neo’ or digital bank?
Up is a digital bank designed to help you organise your money and simplify your life. This means that under the hood it’s a bank account, but a bank account that’s organised in quite a different way to what you might be expecting or have experienced with other banks.
A digital bank is a bank that doesn’t have any branches. A neo bank is basically just a new bank. We’re not huge fans of these definitions though as we see that Up is the best of all worlds. Up is built by engineers and designers who work for a tech company, called Ferocia, but backed by one of the oldest and most trusted banks in Australia, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank.
As an Upsider, this gives you the stability and security of a big bank with the innovation and cutting edge tech you get from a company that lives and breathes design and development.
How long has Up Bank been in business?
Up has been accepting new customers since October 2018. Since then we’ve had more than 300,000 people join the Upside and we are now Australia’s highest rated banking app.
Is Up Bank a profitable business? Can we expect it to stick around long term?
Up is backed by Bendigo and Adelaide Bank which is more than 160 years old. Any deposits you put into Up are held by Bendigo Bank and are therefore covered by all the same guarantees as any other bank account in Australia. We’re definitely building Up for the long term.
What is Up Bank’s business model?
At the moment Up provides spending and savings products, which are both deposit products. All banks make money from either fees or margin (or both). We tend to favour margin at Up (over fees).
Up is in a fortunate position being a collaboration between an Australian technology company (Ferocia) and a fully licensed bank (Bendigo Bank) who offer products on both sides of the ledger, and are therefore able to generate margin from deposits.
How can Upbank help someone on the path to Financial Independence?
There’s a bunch of ways that Up helps people achieve their financial goals. We recently did a relatively in-depth write up of ways Upsiders have used Up to make their financial lives easier and achieve their goals (whether that’s saving more, understanding their spending better or even simply by making engaging with their money more fun and engaging.
Does Upbank sell my transaction history and purchasing data? Aggregated or otherwise?
No.
Can I get a home loan with Upbank?
At the moment Up doesn’t offer home loans, but who knows what the future will bring.
Not at the moment.
Can I get a second debit card linked to the same up bank account?
At the moment you only get one physical debit card for your Up account as well as digital wallets you can use as soon as you’ve joined. Being able to have multiple debit cards is something we’re looking at but for people who follow the Barefoot approach or similar, we have some concepts that are unique to Up called Covers & Forwards and Pay Splitting that are worth looking into. These let you automatically split your pay into Savers (which you can set up instantly) and then Cover purchases from a specific account of your choosing.
What makes Upbank different from ING, or other neobanks like 86400? Why should people choose Upbank?
The first thing to keep in mind is that Up is built first and foremost by engineers, designers and dreamers, who set out to challenge assumptions and limitations in banking, so it’s much more than just a bank account with a new logo slapped on it.
While most banks sell accounts, Up offers a beautifully designed ecosystem of carefully crafted tools to remove stress and empower Upsiders to reconnect with their money – kinda like a magic dartboard for your money. Some of the best reasons people should consider trying Up include:
Understanding where your money really goes.
Instant notifications keep you updated any time you make a purchase or get charged. Our modern, full-colour activity feed shows exactly where you’re spending and provides automatic weekly and monthly spending insights.
Saving like you’ve never saved before.
Save without lifting a finger thanks to incredible features that make saving easy and fun. Round Ups automatically save the change from your purchases while Saver Pools let you actually feel your savings grow. Split payments and let you carve up your pay straight into your Savers the second it hits your account. You can then use Covers & Forwards to stick to a budget.
Bills — getting ahead and staying ahead.
Say goodbye to late fees and nasty surprises. Up learns about your regular bills and charges and shows you when they’ll be next charged, so you know how much money you really have to spend in the days or weeks coming up.
Looking to bank overseas, without the fees?
If you’re shopping online, Up offers free-free international banking. Looking to send money internationally? Our Transferwise integration is one of the fastest and cheapest ways to send money overseas.
Say goodbye to hold music with support on tap.
We’re here to help — any time you need a hand just swipe across to Talk to Us in the app to quickly chat with an actual human…
Will Upbank abolish all ATM and transaction fees like ING?
For the most part, Upsiders don’t use that much cash. We support almost all the digital wallets so for most Upsiders, ATMs and cash is definitely a secondary consideration and not the primary way they pay for things.
Despite that, most of the bigger Australian banks let you use their ATMs for free and with Up you can also use Bank @ Post to deposit cheques and cash and withdraw money at any Australia Post outlet in Australia.
We’re also one of the first banks in the world to support using EFTPOS over Apple Pay, which also means you can withdraw money when you’re at the supermarket or anywhere offering cash out if their merchant terminal supports it.
This does mean that there are a few smaller ATM networks you can’t use for free, but you’ll be told how much they intend to charge you before you withdraw any cash.
How can people track their expenses with Upbank?
There are a lot of ways… Every time you buy an item using Upbank – either in real life or online – you’ll get a push notification letting you know how much you were actually charged and how much you’ve got left in your bank account. Great for finding out if you’ve been overcharged for something and understanding how much you’ve got left to last you until your next pay.
Your spending is then organised in our full-colour activity feed which removes ambiguity about where you’ve bought something by showing where, when and how much you spent at a particular place. You can even see how much you’ve spent at a particular brand or shop by tapping into the insights tab for each brand or shop.
Helping you better understand your spending habits is one of the things Up does really well. One of the hardest things about money is knowing where you spent it. Up makes it really easy to understand your individual spending habits by automatically categorising purchases so you’re always on top of where you’re spending your money.
You can take advantage of spending categories, and use insights to nail your money goals.
The other way Up helps people track their expenses is by automatically learning about your regular charges and predicting when they’ll next be charged. We call this Upcoming Bills and it helps you to know how much money you’ve already committed so you know what you’ve really got to spend in near future.
According to UpBank, what are some of the key steps people can take to save money, become wealthier and reach financial independence?
We can’t answer this as we’re not financial advisors, but a while back we put together a post about a few ways Up can help you spend wisely and our 2nd Birthday post also has some serving suggestions. We’re currently working on a piece that talks about all the way Upsiders have told Up has helped them beat money stress and achieve their financial goals, so I’d love to send a link to that also once it’s done as it’s really inspiring.
Where can we find out more about Up bank?
The best place to find out more about Up is our website.
It’s also worth remembering that trying Up isn’t hard – it only takes a few minutes to join and there aren’t any monthly fees to worry about. Closing an account is also as easy as chatting to us so start small and see how you go.
Summary
Thanks so much for your time Paul! I learned a lot more about UpBank and I continue to use UpBank for my everyday spending and my Barefoot Buckets.
You can check out my full review of UpBank in my article HERE.
Financial Disclaimer: CaptainFI is NOT a financial advisor and does not hold an AFSL. This is not financial Advice!
CaptainFI is not a Financial Advisor and the information below is factual review information, not financial advice. This website is reader-supported, which means we may be paid by advertising on the site, or when you visit links to partner or featured sites. For more information please read my Privacy Policy, Terms of Use, and Financial Disclaimer.
Captain FI is a Retired Pilot who lives in Adelaide, South Australia. He is passionate about Financial Independence and writes about Personal Finance and his journey to reach FI at 29, allowing him to retire at 30.
