Digital banking technology innovator Moneythor has announced a partnership with carbon footprint tracking expert Cogo to make it easier for banks to provide their customers with climate conscious banking solutions

focused on the Asia market. Powered by Cogo, banks using Moneythor’s digital banking platform will soon be able to offer customers the ability to track their carbon emissions and therefore understand their carbon footprint off the back of spending habits directly via their banking apps. Leveraging the Moneythor solution’s recommendation and nudge engine and Cogo’s content, customers will also receive easy guidance on reducing or offsetting their impact.

The partnership comes just months after the release of a report that highlights extreme weather and climate change impact across Asia which “…caused the loss of life of thousands of people, displaced millions of others and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, while wreaking a heavy toll on infrastructure and ecosystems.”

Olivier Berthier, CEO, Co-Founder, Moneythor, said, “Moneythor is committed to ‘sustainable finance’ and believes that personal and business banking has an important part to play in reducing our collective environmental impact. The work we’re doing with Cogo helps provide carbon emissions data to customers quickly and easily; as well as encourage them to make lower carbon choices.”

Moneythor is already integrated with over 20 financial institutions globally, including ANZ (Australia), BNZ (New Zealand), CIMB (Malaysia), DBS (Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia), OKB (Japan) and Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore, Hong Kong) among others, and continues to grow rapidly across the region and beyond. Simultaneously, Cogo’s recent expansion into Asia means the partnership is well timed.

Ben Gleisner, CEO, Founder, Cogo, said, “Asian customers are looking for greater transparency around their spending footprint and this is going to be much easier in future with Moneythor helping to facilitate this through integration of Cogo’s technology into their data enrichment engine. Cogo is currently in discussions with several of Asia’s biggest banks around carbon footprint integration, amidst increasing demand from customers and businesses for transparency around this kind of data.”

Exponential impact

Enabling banks to empower their customers and give them a better understanding of their carbon footprint can make a positive impact across Asia. Gleisner said, “This collaboration has the opportunity to impact Asia’s entire carbon footprint by enabling repeatable, purposeful exchanges between the two biggest global contributors to over-consumption: businesses and customers. That’s real change; and it’s exponential impact.”

Answering customers’ demand for transparency

Gleisner further added, “By leveraging Moneythor’s solution to generate personalized insights into customer’s finances, we give them the  ability to align their spending with their environmental and social values. This is a huge drawcard for banks. Understanding the climate impact of your spend is shifting from being ‘good to know’ to something that customers demand. We’re already experiencing this phenomenon worldwide – Cogo currently works with five of the world’s top 50 banks, with this number expected to double over the next year. Customers expect more; and banks who offer them the ability to be proactive about managing their spend experience increases in loyalty and trust.” 

Banks including NatWest (one of the UK’s top 5) and Commonwealth Bank (Australia’s largest) both use Cogo within their banking app to enable customers to see the CO2 emissions associated with their daily spending. NatWest‘s customers are provided with hints and tips on how to go greener and resources to help them along their journey; while CommBank users are offered the option to offset their emissions using credible projects.

How it works

Moneythor helps banks worldwide to turn customer data into unique, personalized and engaging digital experiences, including nudging customers towards better financial decisions off the back of powerful transaction analysis tools. Cogo’s world-leading sustainability data sets will enrich this data to help customers and businesses to understand, reduce and offset their carbon footprint – all within an existing digital experience.

Berthier added, “Combining forces makes sense from a technology perspective. Moneythor’s platform gives banks the ability to quickly enrich and add contextual information to a customer’s spend at scale; while Cogo’s API and White Label products allow them to assign ’emissions’ to each of these transactions – giving customers accurate insight into their carbon footprint. What’s more, our actionable nudge engine is leveraged to help shift customers towards more responsible financial choices, including climate impact reduction. Working with Cogo to supercharge this functionality is an obvious next step.”

A go-to solution for change

Insights from NatWest’s mobile app pilot showed the average user saved approximately 11 kg of CO2 emissions per month by committing to behavioral changes that used less carbon – such as composting, reducing meat consumption, or switching utility providers. If this behavior was replicated across NatWest’s 8 million customers who use the mobile app, it would save more than 1 billion kg of CO2 emissions per year, equivalent to planting 17 million trees.

Ben concludes, “There’s never been a more important time to impact the world’s carbon footprint. We’re proud to be the go-to solution for change for the world’s largest enterprises, and we’re excited about expanding this change throughout Asia, in partnership with Moneythor.”