Tally, an automated debt management app that consolidates and pays down customers’ debts, is adding savings to its personal finance toolkit.
The three-year-old company, which has so far raised $42 million in funding, on Thursday launched Tally Save, a free app that analyzes users’ spending patterns and automatically puts spare funds into an FDIC-insured savings account, reminiscent of platforms like Digit or RBC’s NOMI Find and Save. In addition to the auto-save feature, Tally Save rewards users for saving money by letting them accrue points that can be redeemed through gift cards at 50 participating brands, including Uber, Airbnb, Whole Foods, Amazon and Target.
Co-founder Jason Brown told Bank Innovation the objective is to get customers into the habit of saving money regularly with the help of Tally and incentivize them to do so with rewards. “We are flipping the credit card rewards model on its head,” he said. “Credit cards give you points for spending, but what we’re doing is giving you points for saving. [Customers] need to build a habit of setting money aside every week and feel that the process of setting money aside is fun and rewarding.” Users can set savings goals like debt payment, vacation fund and so on.
Tally doesn’t make money off of Tally Save and doesn’t sell customer data to other companies. Brown said the San Francisco-based company generates revenue from the automated debt management app, which takes care of customers’ credit card debts. Customers, in turn, pay off their Tally line of credit at a lower interest rate (the rate depends on each customer’s credit profile, but it’s typically between 7.9% and 19.9%) If Tally’s rate is higher than the amount the lender charges, then customers can pay the lowest rate.
Through debt management and savings features, Tally is taking a platform approach to money management, a route other personal finance, banking and lending startups also are pursuing. According to Brown, the company has saved customers millions in interest and late fees, and the longer-term path to revenue generation will be to build a bigger ecosystem of services to help customers manage their money. “Our roadmap is around doing all of your financial jobs for you,” he said. “Coming up next will be [a service] to manage the flow of your funds to other forms of debt, like student loans and auto [loans].”
Leslie Parrish, senior analyst at Aite Group who studies the lending industry, said Tally’s approach is a novel way to meet customers’ financial needs by concurrently addressing savings and debt management. “They’re tapping into what consumers need because they not only help get [customers] out of debt but then create better habits for the future,” she said. “Those don’t have to happen in a sequence; you can do both at the same time.”
David Sica, a partner at venture firm Nyca Partners, said the challenge for new direct-to-consumer financial brands is to acquire customer trust and loyalty, after which point they can add on additional services. Fintech companies like Tally are well-positioned to expand their feature set to generate sustainable longer-term revenue, he added.
“If I’m a consumer, I don’t want to go to 12 different apps on my phone,” Sica said. “[A platform] is the right strategy as it makes a lot of sense over time as the savings [habits] become more sophisticated.”






