Loot provides smart banking service especially for students and young people

Country: UK
Year: 2014

Unique targeting: different from Mondo, Starling and Dimes Card that offer similar services pairing a prepaid card with a mobile app, Loot targets the hugely lucrative student market and partners with Visa
Solid partnerships: Loot has secured partnerships with 5 top British universities (UEA, Bath, Buckinghamshire, London City and LSE), which will see the app and cards promoted throughout the academic year, and raised 200,000 pounds ($316,000) of investment from Angels with backgrounds at JP Morgan, Citi Bank, and Coutts.
Instant KYC process: Loot can onboard a customer in 2 minutes (only basic information like date of birth, name, and email address is needed), after which users can use their card immediately with a limit of 2,000 pounds ($3,160). Then Loot will continue the KYC process which includes passport scanning and verification of address.

Concept

Loot is a pre-paid card and money management app solving two key problems for students – quick and easy access to banking facilities and responsible money management
Students will be able to automatically track and record spending on their Loot card, thus learning the crucial money management skills they will need.
Loot has also opened themselves out to international students who have been largely ignored by the major banks. It enables international students to get the prepaid Visa cards by signing up in 5 minutes and to top-up the cards via a bank transfer, without having to provide endless paperwork to open a UK bank account and wait weeks to get answers from banks
Loot is currently only available in UK and on IOS devices, with its web version and Android version coming soon.

Instant sign-up: within less than 5 minutes
Money-saving: budgeting, categorized transactions, rewards and discounts
Convenient: The Loot Visa debit card can be used anywhere in-stores and online. Users can also withdraw cash at any ATM
Secure: all funds are held in segregated and safeguarded accounts

Users will have to open a free account via Loot’s mobile app in around 5 minutes (only basic information and a scan of ID are required) and will receive a prepaid Visa card
Users then use their Visa card to make payments both in-stores and online, and withdraw cash at any ATM in the world
Users can transfer money from another bank account and deposit cash into their Loot account
Loot’s mobile app will help them budget and save
Loot’s will also send users vouchers and offers to help keep their costs down
The pricing for different banking services are provided below:
- Sign up for new cards / instore cashback / transactions within UK: free
- Bank transfer: free up to 3 days
- Paypoint loading: £1,00 + 2.5%
- ATM withdrawals: 75P
- ATM balance enquiry: 20P
- International transactions: £1,00 + 1.5%
- ATM withdrawals (EUR): £1,00 + 1.0%
- ATM withdrawals (INT): £1,50 + 1.5%