The industry has grown and grown out of its infancy. There are so many companies that shape the industry but not all are equally known. Who are the companies that are the glue between finance and digital technologies? Let’s meet one of them.
Tomorrow GmbH
Tomorrow is the first player to link the two mega trends Mobile Banking and Sustainable Finance. Tomorrow has been offering a mobile checking account since November 2018. And in the future, Tomorrow will be transformed into a comprehensive digital financial platform. True to the motto “Your Money, Your Impact,” Tomorrow combines state of the art technology with a positive social and environmental impact.
The Tomorrow Sustainability Promise
- Sustainable safekeeping of all deposits: With Tomorrow, no cent flows into armor, coal power or genetic engineering. Tomorrow finances only sustainable projects to launch a microfinance fund.
- A card that protects the climate: Every payment made with the Tomorrow MasterCard finances climate protection projects automatically.
- Know Where Money Affects: In the Tomorrow Impact Board, customers can see in real time what environmental, social and economic impact they are achieving with the community.
- When was the last time you visited your bank branch? Exactly. Tomorrow has bundled all the relevant services around an account in one app.
- Open account, change faster than the bicycle tire. And easier: in less than 10 minutes, you can open an account with Tomorrow at Tomorrow. A few questions, a few clicks, done. And no oil on your fingers.
- After each payment a push message, so you always have the costs under control.
- Among friends with the same account, you can even send money in real time. Never again “I’ll give you tomorrow”.
- You do not talk about money? We see that differently. We want to develop the “Bank of Tomorrow” explicitly together with our stakeholders.
- Our strategic product roadmap is open to the public for everyone and everyone. The public can preview, rate and comment on all novelties.
- In our forum we are in constant dialogue with the (future) customers about what the bank of tomorrow should look like technically, ethically and organizationally.
- We have a clearly defined value canon, which is anchored in the social contract. In addition, we are currently being certified for B-Corp.
Facts and figures about Tomorrow
Distribution channel of Tomorrow is B2C. Target group is private customers. Destination country is Germany. Status of funding is seed funding. A further financing planned is planned. Name of the products of Tomorrow are, Tomorrow finances renewable energy, Organic agriculture, Microcredit and much more.
The business model of Tomorrow
Tomorrow acts as a digital platform that offers its customers state of the art digital banking services. While delivering a consistent sustainability promise. While they develop the entire front end including our own back end structure themselves and hold the customer dialogue. They work in the background with a banking as a service provider(solarisBank). Which provides the IT core banking system and banking license.
Thanks to the platform model, they can flexibly offer their customers the products of third-party brands without having to develop all the services themselves. In addition to providing the technology platform, their mission is to provide a sustainability analysis of all available financial products. So that their clients can be confident that their finances are having a positive impact.
By eliminating branches and having their own IT core banking system, they can maintain a lean and flexible cost structure and offer highly marketable, competitive solutions. Revenues are generated through three pillars: Fees, platform, Third-party commissions, Deposits.
Tomorrow: The founders & investors
Inas Nureldin left the software company Muddy Boots Software, which he founded in 2016. Where he spent 10 years scrutinizing the food industry’s value chains. His studies at Zeppelin University and Leuphana have Inas with an Exec. MBA in Sustainability Management completed.
Michael Schweikart was most recently CEO of MigrantHire & Jobs 4 refugees. Which help refugees find their way into the job market through an online platform. Previously, the industrial engineer worked as a corporate finance consultant at Concentro Management AG.
Jakob Berndt is co-founder of the social business Lemonaid Beverages, which has conquered the European soft drink market with the brands Lemonaid and ChariTea. In 2016, he and his team won the German Founder Award. Jakob studied cultural sciences at Leuphana University and in Sydney. He is chairman of the board of the international maritime rescue organization SOS Mediterranee.
Investors are Matthias Willenbacher, founder of Juwi, Georg Kaiser, founder of the BioCompany, Harry Assenmacher, Berlin Ventures, Georg Bader, founder Vitafy.
Milestones: What Tomorrow has achieved so far
Well, they only started a few weeks ago. As far as numbers are concerned, they do not have much to show yet.
To date, around 3,000 customers are on board, all of them word of mouth, without any marketing spender the dazzling CAC of 1 €.
Together, they have put about 2,000,000 into their accounts, through which they have already made their first impact investments.
What makes Tomorrow so special?
If they are not completely misinformed, there are a number of prominent fintechs on your list, some of them superstars. In terms of customer numbers let alone funding totals they can notyet keep up, they have just started operations.
But already you can say, they bring a breath of fresh air into the industry and a topic on the agenda that urgently needs to be heard. What contribution does the financial sector make, what contribution do banks make in terms of sustainability?
More and more people buy organic vegetables, have green electricity, squint direction electric car. But how sustainable is your money? If you take a look at the products and balance sheets of the major German banks. You will almost certainly find investments in the energy, pharmaceutical, armaments and automotive industries there. The fact that their money is currently being used to build a new coal fired power station or that a GM food giant is financing its Africa expansion is something customers often do not even get along with. People save well for their own future or those of children – and ignore what their money makes with this very future.
Conclusion
With all due respect and recognition of technological innovation, they believe that it also urgently needs a change in the value of the industry. And a much better environmental and social footprint. That’s what they started for.
Yes, there are already banks that have recognized this imbalance. For some decades, they have been providing information about sustainable investments. They invest in wind power, agriculture, cooperatives. And thus achieve not only ideal, but also presentable economic success. However, their number of customers is still negligible and not even five percent of Germans have a sustainable account. And that, even though people would have been ripe for a bank turnaround.
Maybe you have to make it easier for people to change? With a little less forefinger and a little more comfort. It is important to dust off the difficult topic of sustainable finance. And to make it suitable for everyone. Tomorrow brings together what belongs together, Sustainable Finance x Mobile Banking.
Also published on Medium.