Social Saving With SmartyPig
Saturday March 8, 2008
SmartyPig is a new service that helps people save for their goals. Want to buy a bike by next summer? You can create a goal at SmartyPig and make it a reality.
Money goes into an FDIC insured savings account, and you can get help from your friends. By making your goal public, other people can 'donate' to it by making a credit card payment. You can hit your friends up for money, or they can find out what you're saving for by searching your profile.
SmartyPig seems to package a few processes that you could already do online, but now they're easier to coordinate. If this will make it more likely for you to save (and avoid borrowing), then go for it. However, you can run into some fees depending on how you use the service. If you can live without the social networking aspect you can probably make do the old-fashioned way.
For a detailed writeup, see what NetBanker says about SmartyPig.
Comments
Social Finance may be the next big thing to impact the banking industry. Some reports state that social lending may consume 10% of all retail loans by 2010. Banks need to adapt to this shift in consumer behavior and quickly.