How Bud is helping Blackbullion empower students with money skills and confidence for life

Problem 

Young people and students crave financial freedom but rarely have the right information or resources to hand. This means they may struggle to proactively improve their financial situation, wrestle with debt and make informed decisions.

And for those students in need of financial support, getting this extra money has historically been a lengthy process for universities and colleges. With providing bank statements as a necessary part of the process of applying for this support, a particular pain point for both the student and the staff who assess student applications. 

Enter Blackbullion.

Described by many as the home of student money, Blackbullion combines FinTech with EdTech to provide students with a place to learn about money, find and apply for additional money, and manage their money with confidence. 

Solution

Blackbullion’s robust and powerful money management app is the first of its kind, designed specifically for students and powered by Bud’s Engage solution to allow users to visualise their financial situation in one place - to better understand it and take actions towards feeling more in control of their finances. 

With market-leading categorisation to classify spending in any way they want and by providing students with insights into their spending over time and suggesting areas where they can save, students are empowered with more control over their finances and are given the tools to proactively improve their financial position.

By partnering with Bud, Blackbullion has also provided universities and colleges across the country with a clearer, more holistic view of the finances of students applying for funding – necessary to determine whether they are eligible for financial support from their place of study. This is decided by the student supplying bank statements alongside their application, which historically was an extremely time consuming and manual process for the student and required significant work from staff too. 

Now, students can opt to use open banking to securely connect their bank account to their application and automatically supply this information. This has meant massive time savings for students, has cut down on the need for staff to liaise back and forth with students on this part of the process and overall, enabled applications to be processed faster so students in need can get financial aid sooner.

Bud’s AI-powered data intelligence platform categorises spend and draws out insights, which has enabled universities to more effectively serve and support students by delivering key learnings, resources and support tailored to the student’s unique financial situation — all from one centralised application.

Outcome

Since partnering with Bud, Blackbullion has:

• Accelerated funding application processing speeds by 2-4x for staff members
• Decreased bank statement-related evidence submission time from an average of 40 minutes to 3-5 minutes
• Almost 20,000 account connections created in the 6 months period 
• 8x faster for students to supply required bank statements alongside their funding application

Interested in empowering your customers with money skills and confidence for life?

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