Mobile Finance: How to manage your money on the go

I was basking in the Athenian sun today, eating ripe bananas for lunch when it struck me. This crazy digital nomad lifestyle just wasn’t possible five years ago.

It’s not that the internet didn’t exist back then—of course it did, and download speeds weren’t that much slower.

What was missing was a mature, mobile SaaS layer, the “soft” infrastructure that simplifies working, getting paid, and managing your money on the go.

Let’s take a look at my specific needs, and the apps I use for each.

Need #1: Withdraw Cash
Every time we use our card with an ATM abroad, two banks (the one back home and the one behind the ATM) are busy overcharging us. Some fees are itemized on our bank statement but others are hidden in the exchange rate. That’s because the exchange rates used for this transaction are significantly higher than the mid-market rates.

To avoid this cost, I use Monzo (disclosure: I participated in their latest crowdfunding). Monzo is a brand new bank without a brick and mortar presence — they don’t even have a website. All they offer is an app and a MasterCard. The latter allows me to withdraw local currency at mid-market exchange rates. The solution is beautiful and it has never failed me so far.

Need #2: Transfer money
Conventional international transfers are expensive. To get around that, I use TransferWise. TransferWise allows me to send money to any overseas bank account, for the cost of an espresso. Example: wiring £1000 to a Euro account saves me £35.38 compared to a traditional bank (using today’s rates). TransferWise came up with an ingenious way to avoid transfer fees. It has to do with owning local bank accounts in all major currencies, but I won’t go into all the details here. Check them out.

Need #3: Invest
My next app is momeyfarm. Moneyfarm is a key player in the recent robo-investing trend. While I’m not an expert here (far from it) the basic principle is simple.

Traditionally, when someone wanted to invest their savings, they often turned to the mutual-fund marketplace—a big, complicated, and competitive industry. Naturally, most mutual funds spend a lot on advertising, promotional material, premium office space, and fund-manager salaries.

No wonder their fees are so high.

A key concept I gleaned from Tony Robbins’s work on Unshakeable is that fees matter, and they matter a lot. As Richard Templar points out in The Rules of Wealth, most investment professionals “fail to grow money any faster than the market. So don’t pay them for trying”. The simpler your investment vehicle is; the fewer people it employs and the fewer trades it makes; the better it is for your returns.

Moneyfarm uses ETFs (exchange traded funds) which track the performance of financial indexes. In some ways they resemble, but are not identical to, index trackers. This passive approach makes investing more affordable and accessible to the frugal millennial generation. While momeyfarm is a relatively new company, their funds are secured by a custodial bank, which means that if they go bust, investor money is protected. Using their super simple app, you can manage your investments from any location.

And speaking of locations …

Need #4: Protect
How comfortable do you feel while using public Wi-Fi networks? What if a hacker sitting behind you in some airport lounge is intercepting your financial data? That’s where VPN (virtual private network) products come in handy. A VPN encrypts all data you send and receive. It also masks your browsing location, making it look like you’re based in a different country altogether. This proves useful if you want to stream TV shows from other countries for example.

Most VPNs charge you a few dollars per month. After extensive research I’ve settled on a free VPN app called windscribe. It works on iOS, Mac, Windows, Chrome, and they give you 10GB of free data each month which is phenomenal. Check them out.

The rest
Other apps I have on my iPhone are PayPal, XE, and traditional banking apps. I’ve also been experimenting with Revolut. They offer free virtual cards, accounts in various currencies, and other interesting products. I also have a digital wallet with Coinbase for holding my Bitcoin, Ethereum, et cetera. Their app gets regular updates, making it really easy to monitor, buy, and sell cryptocurrencies. They do not, however, offer UK wires, making it harder for us UK folks to use their service.

In Closing : Technology is the great equalizer
The apps above hold great promise. Not because they let some millennial check their bank balance from a hostel in Chiang Mai. Rather, because they’ve taken something which was formidably complicated—finance—and simplified it for the masses.
And this is just the beginning.

Now, before I head off to prepare my banana smoothie, I’d really like to hear from you. What apps and services do you use for managing your finances on the go? Let me know in the comments.