Every nation has its quirks, and the U.S. has more than its fair share, but what stands out the most to me – as a tech journalist who recently made the move across the pond – is that in many ways, the nation of Silicon Valley is still stuck in the 90s.

Take cheques (or checks as you Yankees would call them) for example. In England it had been years since I’d last seen one of those things, much less written one. Up until five years ago our in-laws might have used them to give us Christmas or birthday money, but even they switched to Internet banking and just transferred the “green gifts” over to our account when they were feeling in a generous mood.

In many ways, the nation that gave us Silicon Valley is still stuck in the 90s
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But in the U.S. it quickly became apparent that these things were very much still in vogue. A paycheck is, quite literally, a pay check. And if you’re paying for something, the logical thing to do is write out one of these things, address an envelope, put a stamp on it, and trust that it will arrive at its destination between 3 and 30 days, at which point, if it hasn’t, you’ll need to repeat the steps above.

What tickles me the most, though, is that I have quite a nifty little banking app on my smartphone. And that app is really capable of doing all the things you would expect of such an app, such as moving money around without ever having to put pen to paper. Does it have that facility though? Not really.

In the U.S. a paycheck is, quite literally, a pay check
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What it does let me do is pay in my checks via the app. Yes. Once I receive my paper check from the pony express delivery, and sign the back of it with my ink pen, I can finally use my app to take a photo of both sides and pay it into my account. Huzzah!

And at that point, I will then likely have to find an ATM (or actually go to an honest-to-God old fashioned bank counter) and pay a few bucks for the privilege of withdrawing my own money into paper cash form.

I just did a mammoth roadtrip across America, listening to audiobooks I got from my local library… On Cassette
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Because in the good old U.S. of A, money really does make the world go around, and people do like their cash. Sure, most places will take cards, but more often than not it’s just easier to pay cash. In England I’d go for weeks without carrying any cash at all in my wallet, mainly because everybody did contactless payment (and you don’t tend to complicate things by tipping unless you’re at a restaurant) so it took a millisecond to pay and walk out.

Once I receive my paper check from the pony express delivery, and sign the back of it with my ink pen, I can finally use my app to take a photo of both sides and pay it into my account. Huzzah!
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When I opened my American bank account and finally got my bank card (about three weeks later by pony express) they proudly announced that my card contained this amazing chip and pin technology… Contactless is still a bit of a science fiction thing in a lot of places as far as I can tell.

Everywhere I look there are relics of the old world order, and not in a proper vintage sort of way either. Vinyl records, that’s retro cool. DVD machines at Walmart, WTF? But then again, don’t get me started on how expensive and bad the broadband service can be depending on where you live, so maybe Netflix is not as universally accessible as it seemed to me in the UK.

Contactless is still a bit of a science fiction thing in a lot of places
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Everywhere I look there are relics of the old world order
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I just did a mammoth roadtrip across America, listening to audiobooks I got from my local library… On Cassette tapes. I swear that at this point I would not be surprised to be handed a file on a floppy disk.

I also get endless paper catalogs in the mail. I literally cannot think of any circumstance which would tempt me to purchase something from them as opposed to ordering from Amazon. For one, it would probably involve writing a check.

And then, for the love of God, there is the fax. The first time someone suggested I fax over a document to them I laughed out loud and waited patiently for them to join me in the joke. They didn’t. After double checking I hadn’t fallen through a wormhole and come out in 1995, I informed them I did not possess such a machine, but would be happy to send them photographic scans of said documents from my phone (I have an excellent app called Camscanner which accomplishes this brilliantly) but alas, no, for many it is a matter of fax it or mail it. Email is not considered “secure.”

The first time someone suggested I fax over a document to them I laughed out loud and waited patiently for them to join me in the joke - they didn’t
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I can’t help but cast my mind back to the days when I did use fax (yes, I am that old, I just choose not to live in the past most of the time) and it seems to me that people used to send their sensitive documents to the wrong number all the time, specially since what you got at the other end was just a series of bleeps rather than a confirmation of who the fax number actually belonged to. But, sure, it’s safer than email or an app… If you say so.

But they do say so. I lost count of the times over the past few months I found myself bitterly wishing I did own a damned fax machine. And I have finally learned how to fill in a check properly.

I lost count of the times over the past few months I found myself bitterly wishing I did own a damned fax machine
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When in Rome… use contactless. But in America, be sure to carry cash.

Tech Trends offers a broad range of Digital Consultancy services to guide companies, individuals and brands in effectively leveraging existing and emerging technologies in their business strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. You can follow @alicebonasio on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her Inside VR/AR Newletter for all the latest curated immersive news.  

The post What the Fax? appeared first on Tech Trends.

Yolt promises to make managing your finances intuitive and even– dare we say it? – Fun.

The app was developed by a start-up owned by ING bank
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There’s no shortage of platforms and applications out there that promise to help you keep track of your finances, and of course most banks and credit cards now offer their own proprietary apps that let you access your account(s) on the move.

Yolt CEO Frank Jan Risseeuw

But if you’re anything like me, you will have many different accounts in your household, and keeping track of them all over the course of a month can become a bit of a nightmare. So I don’t exactly tend to look forward to the “time of the month” when I wrestle my finances spreadsheet submission. That time, I’m ashamed to say, usually only comes around when my “to be filed” drawer fills up to the point where I can no longer close it, and the whole wretched process ends up robbing me of a good few hours which I’m sure could have been better spent elsewhere. This, however, is precisely the pain point that a new smart money management platform called Yolt is setting out to solve.

“In modern life, the phrase ‘time is money’ has never felt more apt,” says Frank Jan Risseeuw, Yolt’s CEO. Yet he points out that in this age of instant gratification, few of us have the patience to manage our finances properly. “We need to package that functionality in a way that provides convenience, speed and customization in a very intuitive way,” he explains.

Yolt was founded in 2016 and is owned by leading European bank ING, so has some serious resources behind it. They’ve been testing and improving the app in closed beta since October last year, and have now launched their open beta in the UK, meaning users in the country can now download the app for free on iOS and Android.

“Everyone has their own habits and routines, especially when it comes to saving, spending and budgeting. Over the last 16 months we’ve spoken to people about what matters most to them. We’re inspired by the lives and stories of our users, and want to create solutions based on those real life situations within our app,” adds their Head of Strategy and Marketing Pauline van Brakel.

I took Yolt for a spin and was quite impressed by how straightforward it was. After download and installation, it takes a few seconds to setup a single secure pin that gives you access to the app, and then you proceed to link your various bank and credit card accounts to it so you can view all your transactions in one place.

Yolt’s Head of Strategy and Marketing Pauline van Brakel

The idea is to allow users to build up a holistic view of their spending patterns, using past transactions to make realistic projections and enable better planning and adjustments.

Yolt allows users to build a holistic view of their spending patterns
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The most surprising thing I found was actually how I started having a bit of fun with building up my monthly budget. The app pre-suggests categories such as Eating Out, Groceries, Housing, Travel, Cash, Bills, etc. and allocate how much you want/think you should spend on each one. Once you link your various accounts to the app, you can then see how realistic those projections actually look. And that is probably Yolt’s biggest USP.

With Yolt you can start bridging the gap between where your finances are and where you want them to be
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I tried several budgeting apps in the past, but what I like about Yolt is the way it brings those budgeting functionalities together with the reality of what you finances actually look like. Having real data at your fingertips is very empowering, and makes building a realistic budget a lot easier. There is often a gap between how much we think we spend on things such as eating out or having a takeaway latte every morning, and how much these things actually cost. With this app it can become a little bit easier to start bridging the gap between wishful thinking and reality, and making more responsible choices about our finances.

The next step following the UK open Beta will be for Yolt to partner up with more Fintech companies to add more features to the app, such as price comparison functionality for energy providers, for example.

“We want to challenge the status quo of money management and harness the power of open banking empower people to take back control of their finances and make smarter decisions,” says Jan Risseeuw. That way, he concludes, we can all spend less time worrying about money and more time actually enjoying life.

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post The App That Wants You To Unthink Money and Enjoy Life appeared first on Tech Trends.