The UK's roll-out of the Open Banking, which, given its two-year head-start on Australia's regime, is often used as a pointer for future adoption and success, hit a major milestone last week as it was announced that 5m users have now engaged with and used Open Banking.Particularly impressive was that growth from 4m to 5m was achieved in just 4 months, much faster than previous 1m user increments.This suggests that consumers & businesses are moving to embrace tools and services that enables them to move and manage their money much more readily.https://www.openbanking.org.uk/news/open-banking-passes-the-5-million-users-milestone/

Leading pocket money app, Spriggy, has made its first move outside of kids money management with the launch of Spriggy Invest, aimed at enabling parents to invest for their children's future.The app initially offers simple ETF-based options, either locally in Australia or in Global Technology shares.Spriggy benefits from a rapidly loyal customer-based of circa 400,000 Australian households, so the idea to futher monetise this base by offering additional services to families is likely to have been a no-brainer.The investments are managed by the Cache Invest - investment-as-a-service - platform.

Local FinTech scale-up, InDebted, has switched to a four day working week for all employees, making it one of the first local companies to adopt what has been up to now a broader (yet still nascent) global trend.Founder, Josh Foreman, is looking to bolster productivity by having fresher, less burnt-out, employees, as well as stand out from the crowd to prospective new-hires.The tech debt management business is in hyper-growth phase and recently raised $25m in its Series B funding round. Foreman hopes it can maintain this trajectory by becoming a workplace-of-choice as employees fully recharge.https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/news/indebted-four-day-work-week/

Pocket money super-app Spriggy looks set for rapid expansion after banking $35m in its Series B funding round, led by NAB Ventures.The app, which helps families manage money movement by awarding pocket money and rewarding chores whilst empowering children to start managing their money responsibly with a debit card, enjoys a rapidly loyal following amongst its 500,000 family user base.This user base will likely provide the leverage for new product initiatives, as users progress on their family financial journeys into a broader range of financial tools.https://www.startupdaily.net/2021/07/fintech-spriggy-35-million-series-b-nab-ventures/

Leading neobank UP has done its bit to accelerate Open Banking in Australia by becoming the 7th bank to make its data available as a Data Holder.This means UP's circa 300,000 customers can share their financial data with other accredited Open Banking participants (such as personal financial management app, Frollo, and CBA).UP's runaway popularity with a digitally-native customer base makes it easily the most requested institution by customers of Frollo and similar money-management tools, and so the early move to share data can't be understated in putting a well-timed rocket under the Open Banking roll-out.https://mozo.com.au/neobanks/articles/neobank-up-joins-frollo-open-banking-platform

No sooner had the ink dried on CBA's announcement that it's to launch it's own Buy-Now / Pay-Later offering (sorry Klarna) to challenge local incumbents, Afterpay, went full 'double-bicep flex' and returned fire with the salvo that they are making a foray into banking via Afterpay Money.Confident that they have the loyalty amongst their base to lure them across, Afterpay are developing customer experiences that "will be like nothing a bank, or neobank, will do," according to Lee Hatton, who is running the venture.Given their success to date, few would bet against them. Popcorn at the ready.https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/afterpay-confident-it-can-build-a-better-banking-app-