Corvallis-headquartered Strands has always had a definitive focus on the power of recommender technology—a technology that use an amalgamation of personal actions, actions of like-minded individuals, and inferences from those actions to make recommendations. But they’ve struggled a bit finding the appropriate and market worthy applications of that technology. They’ve pursued music, lifestreaming, and—most recently—exercise.
However, if this recent news is any indication, it’s their personal finance recommender pursuits that may be paying off. You see, Strands just signed ING.
Now, Strands is proud to announce that ING has launched TIM for their customers in the Netherlands. The Dutch bank has chosen Strands technology to offer new services to their customers that allow them to better manage their expenses and income.
Strands first unveiled its personal finance service as Money Strands, a service built on the combination of Strands technology and the acquisition of Ryan Williams’ NetworthIQ.
More recently, they’ve been exploring the opportunity to partner with banks like BBVA in Spain. And those banks are seeing noticeable results.
Financial services companies that offer personal finance solutions increase their customer retention by up to four times.… In Spain, BBVA was the first to implement Strands’ technology last November and to launch the Tú Cuentas service. A month after it’s launch, more that a 130,000 users had already tried the tool and to this day, more than 250,000 customers have already improved their personal finance management.
ING is the latest bank to sign on for the service.
Who is ING? I’m glad you asked. ING is a Dutch financial institution that offers everything from banking to insurance. They offer those services to “more than 85 million private, corporate and institutional customers in Europe, North and Latin America, Asia and Australia.” The Strands service is currently in private beta with ING’s Dutch customers.
What is Strands providing? Much like typical personal financial software, Strands will help users better understand where their money is going, analysis of spending habits, and—drawing on Strands recommender expertise—comparisons with other uses.
For more on the deal and the details on the features, see the Strands post on the ING deal.
[HTML1]
