Buffalo, N.Y.-based M&T Bank rolled out a cash flow feature on its Money Smart personal finance platform this week to buoy customers feeling the economic hit from unemployment or lost income amid the pandemic, Director of Digital Banking Mary Kate Loftus told Bank Innovation.

The new functionality was launched in the wake of growing user adoption and engagement on budgeting tools on the account aggregation platform since the bank launched Money Smart last August. The Money Smart platform, accessible through M&T’s mobile app and banking website, allows customers to add account information from various finance data sources, in addition to data gathered from banking done via M&T. The idea is to help customers better manage their finances by putting all their financial information in one place.

“Cash Flow,” as the new feature is called, will prompt a customer to tag which transactions are recurring in order to predict their balance throughout the month, Loftus explained. Customer feedback for Money Smart shows customers aged 25-34 are most satisfied with the platform, “and we expect Cash Flow to make a difference in the lives of younger consumers,” she added.

Since launching in August 2019, more than 73,000 customers have enrolled in Money Smart and more than 15% are using the aggregation tools, Loftus said. Also, the percentage of customers who are 30 days active is approaching 20%, signaling that they are making the platform part of their routine to better manage their money, she noted.

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The information M&T gathers through this holistic view of customers’ financial lives has helped the bank to boost personalization efforts, including a recent effort to reach out to customers in new ways during the pandemic. “When we see customer credit card balances rising in the data, we can offer lower-interest options to help the customer improve their cash flow during this time of stress,” Loftus said.

The regional bank, which has $120 billion in assets and over 700 branches in the Northeast, is also seeing customers lean into the debt payoff feature on Money Smart, with one in five active users leveraging the tool in April, Loftus said. The tool shows users how much they need to set aside to pay off debts within specific timeframes, based on information from accounts aggregated. There’s an educational aspect too, in which customers can learn about debt-payoff approaches, such as the snowball method, and see visual representations to make it easier to understand, she said.

“Our mission is to make a difference in people’s lives and data from [Money Smart] helps us do just that,” Loftus said, adding that since the pandemic started, more people have been logging in, aggregating accounts and taking advantage of money managing tools.