Leading FinTech Frollo acquires AI-powered savings provider Hip Money to expand its financial wellbeing platform

Award-winning digital finance platform, Frollo has today announced that it has acquired Hip Money, a US originated and Australian based tech start up that helps users eliminate debt and save more money through Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered technology.

Since Hip Money’s Kickstarter funding campaign in 2016, the startup has worked with banks both in the US and Australia to build out features powered by AI technology focused on consumer saving and debt elimination. Hip Money was a finalist in MetLife’s Financial inclusion competition and named a Top Five Global FinTech by SXSW.

Gareth Gumbley, CEO and Founder of Frollo said: “This acquisition marks a significant point of growth for Frollo as we are expanding and enhancing our B2B offering to banks and credit unions. We are excited about increasing our investment into AI technology to enhance the capabilities of our platform.”

With the acquisition, Frollo will accelerate its AI and machine learning capabilities and leverage Hip Money’s experience providing end users with automated recommended next best actions to increase their financial wellbeing through debt elimination and increased savings.

“We know our B2B clients are looking to enhance their customer engagement as they embark on building the next generation banking apps. These institutions are also preparing for Open Banking and looking to find a way to aggregate data and automate insights. The acquisition of Hip Money technology will not only accelerate our platform capabilities to deliver on the requirements of financial institutions but also help our end users that are signed up to the free Frollo app with automated debt elimination,” said Mr Gumbley.

As part of the acquisition, Hip Money’s CEO Mark Zmarzly will join Frollo as the Sales Director based in Brisbane expanding Frollo’s physical footprint into Queensland.

“We felt there was a strong value alignment between the businesses both focused on debt elimination and financial wellbeing. We are also proud to have Mark on the team who comes with wealth of experience in uncovering customer problems and bringing solutions to market with banking partners,” added Mr Gumbley.

Mark Zmarzly, CEO and co-founder of Hip Money said: “We’ve been looking for ways to work together since we met at the MetLife Financial Wellness Finals in 2018 and now the timing is right.”

“The constant during our time together has been our shared motivations to ethically empower people to save more money to alleviate financial stress. That shared vision is why we’re so excited to join the Frollo team and accelerate their growth. It’s also why I know we will succeed,” said Mr Zmarzly.