Gimi – Pocket money app - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

No, I am a former professional soccer player with a degree in economics. The drive for creating an app is not related to the technical aspects, but rather how apps (or technology) can impact how we behave and learn - in this case, how children behave and learn about money.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

Revenue creation. The app market is highly competitive, it is not the 2010 anymore ;), and people in general still have a very high expectations on the products and apps they would be willing to pay for.

_{Philip Haglund}

The interviewee, Mr. Philip Haglund is the CEO and Founder of Gimi - an award winning app for children to gain financial understanding. With Gimi, children learn-by-doing and engage with money under parent’s supervision while getting access to financial education adapted to their needs – all in one fun and safe place.

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

I think there are a lot of beautiful apps out there, and I can appreciate nice looking UI and UX. But in general, the apps that I really love are the ones that are connected to real life. I like the Uber app because it has simplified how I get from A to B. However, games, which are usually cool and well-developed, make me feel trapped in the digital world. I hope we can make apps that serve us in living a better life in the “real world.”

How long have you been working on this app?

7 years now. All the way from a MVP to rolling it out to markets and partnering with market leading banks.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

The need for people to learn and understand the concept of money. Financial literacy is very important for us as individuals, but we are still not taught about interest rates, budgeting, mortgages etc as part of the curriculum in schools.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

First of all, I would say there aren’t many apps that caters to children (aged from 7 years old) with the ambition to make them smarter with their money by teaching them money concepts and help them to handle their money on a day-to-day basis. But what differentiates Gimi is that we are making it child adapted (in terms of UX, UI and content) and that we are using gamification elements to make money learnings more fun.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

We will launch more features adapted for different age groups during the childhood phase, to really adapt money learnings to the maturity of the child. We will continue exploring how we can use new technology (such as machine learning, AR / VR) to further innovate on educational features for children.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

We would like to ask all children that have a bank account to connect it in Gimi and please let us know if there is anything they miss to make sure they love using Gimi as their mobile bank.