The Money Revolution: Easy Ways to Manage Your Finances in a Digital World

by Anne Boden

Transform the way you think about money in this easy-to-use, jargon-free guide by Anne Boden (CEO of Starling Bank) which busts commonly held financial myths, helping you to get the most of your cash in today's digital world.

There's never been a shortage of advice on managing your money, clearing debt, being canny with your cash and getting the best deals. But it can be hard work, and everyone seems to be saying something different.

What if you could easily cut through all the rhetoric and noise and everything could be made straightforward? In The Money Revolution , banking entrepreneur, and founder of award winning Starling Bank, Anne Boden shines a spotlight on how we save, spend and invest our money. By adopting a few new behaviours, it's possible to transform your bank balance for the better.

The Money Revolution breaks through the traditional thinking about money and what you've always been told you should expect from financial institutions. Sharing the benefits of smart banking, fintech solutions and the advantages of open banking, it covers a range of financial solutions, from savings and investments to pensions, bill payments and travel money. Find out everything you need to know to get the best out of your money every day.

Genres: Personal Finance, Finance, Nonfiction, Business

216 pages, Paperback

Published June 25, 2019

About the author

Anne Boden founded Starling Bank in 2014 after a career working in senior leadership at some of the world's best-known financial heavyweights. She was - and still is - determined to ensure that people could benefit from the giant leaps that technology is making in the world of finance.

With the team at Starling, she built a banking app loaded with smart money management tools to help customers control their finances and track their spending and saving in real time. Starling was voted Best British Bank in 2018, 2019 and 2020 and Anne was awarded an MBE for services to financial technology in 2018.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/...

Reviews

[Kirsty ❤️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

I worked in finance up until 11 years ago. At that time online banking was just starting to take hold but people were still very much reliant on bricks and mortar banking (telephony banking included in that). So much has changed in just a decade and I thought I knew a lot of it but reading this so much has changed that I didn’t know and the way of banking and the world of finance is virtually unrecognisable. And its glorious if you feel brave enough to take some chances. I wouldn’t like to say using apps for finance is a young person’s game: I’m 47 and I love it but there are still a lot of people who can’t quite let go of traditional methods.

I started using one of the apps in here (Moneybox) at the beginning of this year (2019) for my ISA and I love it. I’m about to roll up all of my bitty pension pots from old short term (less than 3 years) jobs into one app based scheme too. My research suggests it no worse than anywhere else and actually because they are only small under traditional banking no bank/pension provider has ever cared about supporting me to maximising this. Fintech (financial technology) is so different to trad banking that they can look after the individual in a far more unique way that works for you and isn’t a one size fits all product.

This book then, is for anyone who wants to maximise not just savings and investments but their mortgage and insurances too. There are apps for everything. One of the interesting things I discovered was pay as you go insurance. I don’t drive so the insurances around this were an eye opener and if I ever did learn to drive I would definitely be looking at these.

My normal bugbear is of self-help/supportive books being full of American only website links and I’m sure it works the other way around for people in the States with European books. Anne has added a good mix of both UK/European and American apps so there’s something for most but there are also some apps for the Far East too. So a 6th star for being as inclusive as you can in these types of books.

If you are interested in your finances, want to save/make money or not afraid to think outside the box then this app is full of information and an absolute must read. It’s quite a quick read despite the wealth of information and I’ve a ton of notes to do further research to make sure the things of interest are the right ones for me.

Very highly recommended.

[Vanya Prodanova · Rating 2 out of 5]

Няма спор, че в книгата Boden наистина засяга темата за развитието на финансовите технологии и как това ще се отрази на нашия финансов живот и отношения към парите в близките и не толкова близките години. Но някак си тази книга повече ме напрегна, отколкото да ме вдъхнови и мотивира да се заинтригувам от някое ново интересно приложение и финансовото ни световно бъдеще.

Всичко звучеше като поредните неща, които изискват усилие, проучване, търсене, информация, че и накрая пак може да се окажеш прецакан. А и ми е много трудно да приемам съвети от човек, който е един от основателите на една от тези fintech компании. Съжалявам, ама, всяка информация поднесена от подобна личност трябва да се приема с огромна доза съмнение.

Също така, от една страна, в книгата се държи с читателите си сякаш са умни и разумни хора, които знаят как да се грижат за парите си и търсят начини как да покачат тези си умения и знания на следващото ниво. От друга страна огромна част от коментарите и препратките са за хора, които явно са тотални идиоти и нищо не разбират от финанси. Та, тази биполярност провокира сериозна недоверчивост към написаното.

Може би аз не съм най-ентусиазираният човек относно нови технологии като цяло и затова така не приемам книгата позитивно, но каквото и да е - не мисля, че е добре да се радваме от факта, че животът ни става все по-труден и по-труден и всичките му технологии, които са направени да подкрепят ползвателите си, са си чисто и просто поредното нещо, което да ти натоварва и без друго усложнения живот.

[Emily Wright · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. As a money geek I was excited for this but it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know and it was pretty dry going. The writing style was poor (I’d love to count how many times the word “indeed” was used unnecessarily), thankfully her second book shows much more writing flair.

Because it’s about specific apps it’s already quite outdated, she says herself there’s drawbacks to using a millennia-old medium (books) to write about rapidly evolving technology. I was surprised and disappointed it wasn’t more theoretical / big picture and instead advised people to go download dozens of specific random financial apps.

It was also a bit odd that it recommended lots of international apps - it’s interesting to hear what apps there are in other countries but a strange inclusion in a book which feels like a “guide” and features apps I can’t use. Might have been better to do different releases for different countries rather than try to please everyone?

It just felt like this book wasn’t sure what it wanted to be - it wasn’t a guide to getting your finances in order for the financially uneducated, it wasn’t quite a hypothetical think piece on the evolution of the financial sector... it was all a bit weird.

Took me weeks to plod through, save yourself some time and just read a few good blogs on the subjects you’re interested in.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a pretty good book. It's mostly an curation of fin-apps, many of which you'll find useful. Be aware that you can't or won't use 80% of the tools suggested -- either because they're not available in the US, too much work, just not needed, or too ahead of the curve for most folks. And you'll suffer from app overload if you try to use more than 10, and you'll end up using none of them. I suspect the author doesn't expect readers to use most of them, but just know that and be selective about what you use. But all that doesn't negate the book's utility, and in fact if all those apps and tools were not included it would not be a useful book.

You'll almost definitely learn something helpful here. The author is an expert and provides excellent info that is nicely organized and categorized. Recommended.

I really appreciate the ARC for review!!

[Riteshsonawala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very practical and informational.

Loved reading the book. Got to a know about a lot apps that I was not aware even existed. Money revolution is real and this book drives the point home.

[Rania Azraq · Rating 3 out of 5]

i Kiel how Anne Boden disrupted the market with starling bank . The book is easy to read and it can be of a nice intro if you’re working in FinTech or curious about it . It gives you some example names of FinTech startups adn apps which you can refer back to .

[Wendy Vazquez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this! I included it in a round up reading list. It's great for those who aren't money experts but really want to learn.

[Edward Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great range of app recommendations and insights into the unravelling (in a good way) world of finance.

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Best for UK readers

Most of the examples and a lot of the information on how financial systems work are UK based. Less useful if you're in the US.

[Derek · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thorough and informative content. My feeling is that the subject matter is less suited to a book and more suited to a blog or a web site.

[Nikhil · Rating 1 out of 5]

Every chapter is prefaced with Technology is Great rhetoric with not much novel insights. This book could have been a blog post, may be two or three blog posts if needed.

[Saul Furones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very UK oriented

[Miguel Godinho · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fresh insight into a rapidly changing industry, and great for a quick entry point into fintech for a layperson, but hugely UK-dependent view and biased (its bare one-time mention of Revolut despite it being involved in dozens of concepts explained, for example, screams of one-sidedness when taking into account the book was written by the founder of one of their main rivals)
Would like to see more written in this field with a more independent and broad approach