Possibilities of a Expense Tracking App
By: Rajiv Sathian
Tags: Product, Product Management, Mobile Apps, Financial App, Product Growth

As a Product Manager who constantly likes to connect and talk to customers. This helps me get first-hand experience in understanding customer needs and wants. Lately while working in FinTech and collaborating with multiple experts from the domain in India these are my learnings,

80% of Indians own a bank account in Public or Private banks as of the year 2017 (source)

472 Million Indians are covered under Health Insurance schemes as of the year 2019 (source)

2% Indians out of total population invest in equity markets as of the year 2018 (source)

These numbers clearly show that we as a country are a long way when it comes to bringing fellow Indians to the mainstream financial system.

This is a challenge that is faced by Indians across its regions, cities, and villages everywhere.

When I flip these stats I see huge opportunities too for Banks, Insurance, Financial Services, etc. to grow their business. While thinking through this problem I realized the advice that every graduate gets to hear on getting his/her first job.

Start saving some amount out of your salary so that you can use it whenever you need it

This advice gets stuck with some of us and we jump into saving mode. Whereas for some this advice comes as a realization by the time they reach their 30’s. To validate this I did surveys among my friends, colleagues, it also helped me understand their expectations and challenges.

Here are the learnings from the survey,

59% of the respondents (out of 120 users) find — Saving to be Difficult activity

45% of the respondents spend their salaries on — buying new things, food & drinks, buying digital subscriptions, etc

62% of the respondents look for — better discounts and value in the purchase

51% of the respondents find — the lack of knowledge the biggest reason for not investing

These observations helped me arrive at the conclusion that a considerable section of employed individuals are interested in saving money and investing but they prefer these laid out in a platter, with limited technicalities to deal with.

And the most important part of this survey was that all the respondents had one or the other ‘Expense Tracking App’ that they use to manage their expenses in a better way and also budget them properly.

That’s when it struck me that why can’t an ‘Expense Tracking App’ become a gateway of financial products provided the offerings and suggestions are personalized as per the user’s habits and needs.

So here are my top 5 possibilities that an Expense Tracking App could create,

Provide users an intuitive App experience where they get to make informed investment decisions.

Simplify the complexity of the Personal Finance domain for users to learn and understand.

Provide users bank offers, insurance, investment avenues, personal loans, etc. depending on their spending habits, credit score, etc.

Provide AI-based smart insights and information about how a user could improve his/her saving habits or reduce unwanted expenses.

Provide users access to portfolios for equity investment which will help them invest, similar to how they would do in Mutual Funds.

These initiatives should help in growing a simple ‘Expense Tracking App’ into a catalyst for improved customer participation in Personal Finance and Investment.

This also opens up higher product growth opportunities which could lead to improved user engagement and MAU numbers.

Quick Update: I have created a dedicated project — Expense Tracking App related to this article for a better understanding of my thoughts and suggestions

These are my initial thoughts that I arrived upon after the research of the past couple of days. I would love to hear from other experienced Product Managers and Experts in the domain views too, Simply hit them in the comments.