Sibstar, the fintech app for the demented
When Jane Sibley’s mother began to lose track of her finances due to dementia, she set out to find a way for her mother to retain her independence while protecting her money.
With the father in a nursing home, the mother began to really struggle to understand the everyday economy. Sibley said her mother fell victim to fraud, took out more cash and gave it to the homeless, and overspent on food. “She was capable in so many ways, but her ability to understand money diminished.”
After going down more traditional paths, Sibley and her husband ended up creating a fintech, known as Sibstar. “We tried a lot of different things, including high street banks and other pre-paid debit cards, but none really worked,” she said. “We ended up having to take away mum’s access to money, which was a very tough decision.”
This created problems because routine is important for people suffering from dementia. “By taking away financial independence, you’re essentially taking away independence,” Sibley said. “She could no longer leave the house to, for example, buy a newspaper. What we spend our money on is part of who we are, our identity.
“This was very sad and we thought there had to be another way to enable mum to live independently for as long as possible whilst knowing her money is safe.”
Personal services
Fintech is a broad sector that offers a wide range of financial services to people and companies with different needs. The ability to create apps that cater to a specific group’s needs is important today as people seek personalized services.
This goes beyond targeting specific consumers with certain requirements and is not always about maximizing business opportunities, with fintech being used to support people with specific needs when it comes to financial services. Sibstar is an example.
Sibley said: “Sibstar came from my own experience of caring for my parents, and it was really because of my mother’s condition that the idea came about.”
She was prepared for her mother’s struggle after gaining experience from her father’s condition. “We knew that protecting her finances was going to be very important,” she said.
That’s when Sibley came up with the idea for Sibstar, a debit card designed for people affected by dementia. It is pre-loaded with a certain amount of money with an app that sits on the relative’s mobile phone, so that they can decide how and where the money can be used.
Limits on consumption and cash withdrawals can be set, and ATM withdrawals can be switched on and off.
Changing needs
“The product can be adapted to the changing needs of people, as their needs change as the condition progresses,” Sibley said. “Features can be added as the condition evolves.”
Sibley has no IT, banking or payments background, but submitted his idea to the Alzheimer’s Society Accelerator Programme. “We got down to the final 10 and went and pitched to the innovation team and we got a spot,” Sibley said.
She said this “unfastened a lot of things”.
“It was the first time we wrote down the idea and was the first time we were told it was a good idea,” she added. “This was a game changer – it went from an idea to ‘we have to do something now’. I’m not ashamed to say I literally Googled, ‘How do I set up a prepaid debit card?'”
Having the support of the UK’s largest dementia charity opened many doors for Sibstar, Sibley said. “Suddenly people were taking my calls and they were interested in talking,” she said. This included Mastercard, which has supported the company.
Now out
Sibley looked at other organizations doing similar things for different groups, did some research, and began “reaching out” to issuers, processors and program managers.
She was introduced to an expert who, on a pro-bono basis, worked with Sibstar for 18 months, including guiding it through the acquisition of a developer. Sibstar uses software developer Pannovate for its app.
It took about a year to develop the app and people are using it now. “It’s great to hear from people that it’s helping them,” Sibley said.
The Sibstar service has a set-up fee of £4.99, a subscription of £4.99 a month and then a charge of 99p per transaction. A proportion of the profits will go to causes the organization believes in, and the Alzheimer’s Society already receives 7.5% of the net profit.
