It’s not every day that a Swiss startup of former Julius Baer employees in the US takes root and plans to enter the market in this country only in 2020.
In the Swiss Fintech scene Nummo is practically unknown. Different in the USA. The Zurich based startup already has a respectable customer base there.
These are people who manage their personal finances through the Nummo online platform, jargon Personal Financial Management or PFM for short. It is a digital way to monitor, manage and optimize all of its accounts in an aggregated form.
Steep career with Julius Baer
Nummo has been operating exclusively in the US for five months. And with more than $ 200 million in transaction volume being managed through the platform. By the end of the year, the company want to break the billions. Interestingly, about 70 percent of the customers are women.
The 40 year old from Basel with a Swiss and Israeli passport originally started his career as a lawyer. Worked in the US and then moved into banking a little more than ten years ago. Where he made a steep career at the Swiss private bank Julius Baer Managing Director.
Growing wealth gap
Over the years in banking, he realized that the offer of many financial institutions is hardly different and that the advance of digitization is unstoppable. This, in turn, confirmed his belief that the vast majority of bank customers would sooner or later use a digital platform to manage their own finances.
According to, Tavor, CEO of Nummo, digital financial management starts in retail banking and continues with increasing applications and tools in private banking. He also said that with the ever increasing wealth gap, they want to help those people who need it most to improve their financial situation.
Cloud based and secure
Under these premises, the idea for Nummo based on the Latin word nummus was born. Which Tavor soon tackled with two other Julius Baer bankers, Enrico G. Schoch, Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Gregor Müller, Chief Product Officer (CPO).
From the beginning, the founders had two prerequisites. The independent, digital platform was cloud based and it had to be absolutely secure, as Tavor points out in the conversation. For the cloud the choice fell on Amazon Web Services (AWS) and for the implementation one decided for the Swiss company Amanox on recommendation of AWS.
More than 19,000 financial institutions affiliated
In the meantime, security is ensured through a large number of control mechanisms and updates. Which is imperative since the platform is already connected to more than 19,000 financial institutions in the USA with their services. They guarantee that every customer can view and manage their entire financial situation in an aggregated way.
On average, Americans have 15 different banking relationships, in the form of savings, investment accounts, credit cards, mortgages, student loans, etc.
Expansion planned in Switzerland
The fact that Nummo has taken a foothold in the US as a first step depends firstly on Tavor’s personal background and his time in America. But above all on the fact that the US offers a market that is much easier to homogeneous than Europe. With its many different regulatory frameworks and less developed technology standards.
In addition to further expansion in the US Nummo wants to take root in this country. “Assuming that the regulatory and technological framework conditions are met, we will be ready by the end of 2020 at the latest,” assures Tavor. Nummo currently employs a total of 13 people in Zurich and Lugano.
Prominent investor
Only with organic growth, the further expansion, however, can not be accomplished. That is why the Nummo people plan this autumn a new round of financing. After the founders and friends and families had initially invested almost one million francs, brought a first round of financing another 1.8 Million francs together. The main supporter of Nummo proved to be the tech pioneer and investor Ariel Lüdi, who is based in Cham near Zug and has since become one of the largest co-owners.
With initial success since launching five months ago, the Nummo founders are confident that they will achieve their next goals. So far, they have barely operated traditional advertising and marketing. Nummo made a buzz, especially in the social media, as Tavor narrates apparently with resonance. The highly acclaimed Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas last January invited Tavor as a speaker to talk about Nummo and the future speak the financial industry.
Also published on Medium.